A few days passed since the Fiends For Hire’s first job in Cotagerie. It had taken them nearly a full day to visit the home of the requester and return back to their apartment. They could have used Phon’s Curse to greatly speed up their trip, but it was something she didn’t really want to risk. If she expanded her vision as far as it would go, she could move herself over the course of a few lages in a matter of seconds.
However, this had its limits, and would only really work in a more rural area. The more objects cluttering her range, the less she could extend it. In a packed place like a city, things get blurry much quicker if she extends her vision too far. Plus, if she wanted to cover a long distance, she wouldn’t always know exactly where she’d end up, since she'd be putting her piece into the blurry unknown.
She was fine taking that risk on her own, since she could reanalyze her position and teleport away quickly if needed. Phon didn’t want to risk it with Drim, though, not without more practice. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she accidentally moved him somewhere dangerous and he got hurt because of her negligence. For now, she would just use her ability to move them to public transportation hubs like train stations and they would commute from there.
Phon was walking down one of the main streets of Constead. She was wearing a more casual outfit than usual. She had the same hat on, but she was wearing a white blouse with very short ruffled sleeves that extended just past her shoulders. She wore purple rolled up shorts over black tights that lead into white sneakers.
She was also wearing a brown belt but not in the traditional way. On her left side, it was around her hip like normal, but on the right it was raised up a little past her navel and pulled on her waist. This was to support the leather pouch that hung off of it from the left side. The pouch contained her surprisingly heavy yo-yo. If she wore the belt normally, the weight of the yo-yo would just pull it straight down.
She was carrying a large stack of flyers as she walked. Every few steps, or basically wherever there was a blank spot on a wall, she would hang one up. Occasionally, she would cover something already there if she found it stupid or irrelevant. This wasn’t really something she was eager to do, but it was something easy when they had few options.
Their first job at the museum had brought them the popularity they were looking for. Their livestream, as well as a video someone else uploaded of their initial event in Prosper, both had several million views in a very short time.
Word was spreading fast that there were two Drazahs alive, and that they were powerful; immensely so. This hadn’t been the exact message they were going for. They wanted more to convey a message that they were capable, and willing to go far for their tasks and accomplish great things. Instead, what was spreading more was a feeling of fear or one of being awestruck.
Almost every single legitimate request they had before, had been recalled. There was a required option to list why. The most common responses were that they didn’t want to be associated with known criminals or apologies that they had been bothered with that person’s ‘meager’ request. It was never their intention from the start to limit smaller jobs. Sure, they might not take something like finding a missing pet, but they were fine building their way up or helping people with modest inquiries.
I guess maybe we did go a little overboard that night at the museum, Phon thought to herself while hanging up another flyer. It had basically just been another job for her, and was nothing really special or difficult, besides the fact that it was a bit more illegal and people were watching. She felt a bit out of touch now with being a normal human. She couldn’t really see things from their perspective, and didn’t have a grasp on their expectations.
Apparently, there were now several posts on forum sites with discussions about them. There were even panelists on news programs that would debate for hours on them and the existence of Fiends. The various communities had come to a consensus of calling them ‘The Drazah Duet’. When this was reported, Drim had to restrain Phon from breaking the television. Truthfully, she quite liked the name, but hated their incessant need to use alliteration for everything.
She was hanging up flyers in hopes of getting smaller, local jobs to fill their current void of work. It was their new strategy to try and build up a reputation of doing more work that actually helped people, rather than doing elaborate crimes. That said, if someone came to them with an offer they would likely still take it, but would do less to seek them out for the time being and tone down the scale of their work for a bit.
Phon had made it through about a quarter of her flyer stack when she found something interesting posted on a window of a shop. It was brand new warrant posters for her and Drim. They weren’t regular ones either. They had skipped that and gone straight to DoA warrants. She looked at the criminal scores; for herself it was a score of 1385 and Drim a score of 1535. She guessed his was higher because he had actively harmed officers while she didn’t, even if their injuries were much smaller compared to the ones Phon had caused by making them hit each other.
She would later find out that this made them the fastest criminals in the history of the criminal score program to go from earning their criminal records to achieving a DoA warrant. This specifically referred to people who didn’t have a murder charge, since that would get anyone a DoA warrant instantly if they were found to be guilty.
She took a look at their list of charges. There were some missing, since they would only post the top ten. There were also some she hadn’t expected, such as cybercrime, which she hadn’t even thought of before. Guess I’ll need to make some new cards, she thought while continuing on down the paper. There was no last known location which made her think, Huh, guess the CP is smart enough to think that we wouldn’t actually be living in Cotagerie.
She was surprised that there was more to the warrant as her eyes continued downward and a grimace shot across her face. There were pictures of them on their posters. This was pretty rare. Normally, only official mugshots from repeat offenders would be put on posters. If there was a particularly elusive criminal with a high score they would sometimes include a composite sketch on a later iteration of their poster.
It was unheard of for a first time run of a warrant to have pictures included. I guess they really want us to get caught… hmm, or maybe they want to spread awareness of our appearance, since they’re not sure if they can catch us, so people can be wary. Thoughts like this continued for a while but she couldn’t keep her eyes from staring at the picture and feeling worse the longer she did.
It wasn’t the fact that there was a picture on the warrant that bothered her, but rather the picture itself. It was clearly a screenshot from their livestream. It looked like they were taken when the two of them were sitting down in the chairs and doing their initial address. However, the quality of the picture was quite low. Whoever had taken the screen capture had been watching at a low resolution. The pictures weren’t flattering either. They were in poses and making facial expressions that were less than desirable.
Maybe when we have a bit of free time, we’ll go get professional pictures taken, maybe do like a dramatic scene and poses or something. Then, I can submit that straight to the police, and if they have good sense they’ll change the picture, Phon thought to herself. For now, she decided to cover up the warrants with her flyers. It’s not that she didn’t want people to recognize her from it, she just wanted it to wait until the picture was better.
She had just finished hanging them up when all of a sudden the remainder of her flyers were scattered in the air. A small girl with brown hair had bumped into her, knocking the papers out of her hand. It was enough force that if she had not been a Fiend, it would have likely knocked her over. Phon began picking up the flyers as the girl did the same.
When the girl had picked up as many as she could carry, she handed them over to Phon, and apologized with a bowed head. Phon bent down to the girl’s eye level, looked at her with a gentle smile and said, “It’s quite alright, just be more careful in the future, okay. My name’s Phon, what’s yours?”
The girl tilted her head with a puzzled look when she responded. “Phon… the grown ups keep talking about someone with that name… Well, my name’s Mazie Pozin, I’m four years old,” she said while holding up an appropriate amount of fingers.
“Nice to meet you Mazie,” Phon said with another smile before asking, “Are you all by yourself?”
Right on cue, a middle-aged woman with matching brown hair came trotting up the street from the same direction Mazie had come from. When she got a little closer, she shouted, “Mazie, sweetie, you’ve got to stop running ahead of me.” Once she got to them, she had to stop a moment to catch her breath. She stared at Phon a little confused for a moment, before snapping out of it and speaking to her.
“I’m so sorry, did my daughter bother you?” she said as she bowed her head and pushed her daughter’s head down a little to match.
“It’s quite alright, just a few spilled papers. Nothing to worry about, and she helped me clean them up,” Phon replied kindly. It was most likely a rare sight for anyone to see her act so nicely. When she wore her mask, everyone instantly knew her as The Vixen and she had a bit of a reputation to maintain. However, it was nice to put that to rest for a while and just act calmly for once. She usually reserved all the niceness she could handle for when she was with Drim, but didn’t mind sparing a bit.
“Well I’ll apologize again either way. My name's Bray Pozin,” the woman said, “And I’m sorry, this is my fault. I got called in suddenly for work so I’ve been running around town looking for someone who can take care of her. Her normal babysitter is sick, the usual daycare I take her to is closed, and the one I just took her to said they were completely full and couldn’t take anyone else!”
“Ugh, I just don’t know what to do!” Bray said as she crouched down to clutch her head while Mazie looked at her worriedly. “And now I’m breaking down in front of a stranger, and don’t know why I’m telling you all of this either.” She paused and looked at Phon for a few more seconds before continuing. “Have we met before? I don’t know why, but I get this strange familiar feeling whenever I look at you like I know you from somewhere.”
“Nope, don’t think so,” Phon dismissed the notion entirely. “But I do think I could help. My brother and I are between jobs at the moment and have been looking for work; that’s what these flyers are for. So, we could look after her if you wanted. I’m not suggesting we take her to our place or anything, so we could watch her at your place. Only if you’re fine with it, of course.”
“Really?!” Bray replied in disbelief. “I mean, the notion of leaving my daughter with someone I just met is a little crazy, but I am running out of options and I really can’t shake this familiar feeling when I look at you. Do you have any experience in babysitting?”
“Well… No…” Phon answered honestly. “But I am a big sister and looked after my brother a lot when we were younger. So, I know the importance and responsibility of watching someone, and my brother is the super responsible type.”
“Well, I guess that will have to do,” Bray said with a somehow sporadic yet relaxed look. “I think I may be going crazy a little bit, but I feel good about this. Thank you so much, please look after Mazie and… Oh, I should give you my contact info.”
“Ah no need,” Phon said as she pulled out her phone, “Mine can exchange our information with just the push of a button.” Her phone then made a beeping noise followed by a similar noise that came from Bray’s purse.
“Wow, that really is convenient,” Bray said before bending down, giving Mazie a hug, and speaking to her. “Alright, be a good girl and go with her now okay. You know the way home so be sure to lead her properly. Try to get along and do as she says. I’ll be home late tonight, but I’ll promise to get there as soon as I can.”
When she was done, she let go and stood up. Mazie walked over to Phon and grabbed her free hand that wasn’t full of flyers. The pair of them walked off in the direction of the Pozin household, as Bray waved them goodbye before rushing over to her workplace.
◆◆◆
Mazie was excited as she held Phon’s hand while they walked. She was swinging their hands happily while she hummed. Since she hadn’t entered school yet, she didn’t have many friends, and the ones she did have were just friends of her mother. She thought that this may be the first time she had made one on her own, that she could remember anyways.
When she saw her home, she let go of Phon’s hand and dashed over to it impatiently. Just as she was about to round the gate into her yard, she slammed into something, causing her to fall butt first onto the ground. She looked up at what she had hit and terror instantly struck her. She had hit the legs of a tall man wearing black. Most of his face was hidden by the hood he had up, but she was scared by what little of it she could see.
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Mazie got up and ran back towards Phon and hid behind her legs. She gripped tightly onto them as she peeked out from behind. Phon simply smiled, bent down and patted her head while she spoke. “Don’t worry, that's just my little brother. I texted him your address after you told me, so he could meet us here. I know he may look a little scary, but trust me, he's a big softie. He keeps his hood up since he has a bit of a complex about his hair.”
“Really, that’s your brother…?” Mazie said as she poked out a little more. Drim flashed her a soft smile which made her feel a bit more at ease. After a few more seconds, she came out of her hiding spot and walked over until she was a few steps away from him and began examining him all over.
Like Phon, Drim was wearing a more casual outfit than his usual combat gear, since wearing that in broad daylight drew a lot of unwanted attention. He was wearing black sneakers and dark green cargo shorts that extended just past his knees. Above that he was wearing a well fitted black tunic that had a v-shaped neck with green lace running across the gap, pulling it tight. The tunic was long sleeved normally, but he had it rolled up to the elbow and it was buttoned in place.
The tunic also had a hood attached, as did basically all of his clothing, and of course he had it up over his head. He was also wearing a single-strap dark green backpack that acted as a sort of pseudo quiver. It only held a few arrows tucked away inside, but it was good enough for an emergency situation. He also had his bracers, tablet, and a few rations stored inside as well. He basically went everywhere at least this much prepared.
After noticeably fidgeting a bit from being stared at, Drim bent down in a similar manner that Phon had done previously, smiled at Mazie, reached out his hand and said, “Hi I’m Drim. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I hope we’ll get along well today.” Mazie was still a bit hesitant, but she stuck out her own hand to shake his. His was quite large compared to hers and covered hers entirely, but he had a very gentle touch. After that, she could feel his kindness and took Phon at her word that he was harmless.
Now that the brief moment of terror had subsided, Mazie returned to her previously enthusiastic state. She now had another friend to add to the collection of ones she’d made on her own and that made her even happier. She grabbed both Drim and Phon’s hands and hurriedly led them over to the door and then hopped impatiently in place while Phon unlocked it with the spare key she’d gotten from her mother.
Once inside, Mazie proudly gave them a grand tour of the house, which to her dismay only took a few minutes, so she felt a little bad about hyping it up so much. She was glad when Drim and Phon didn’t seem to mind. They spent the rest of the morning in the living room. They spent a lot of it just talking; both Mazie and Phon would just spout out whatever came into their minds, which made Mazie happy since she had someone to relate to, but felt that Phon was just as much of a child as she was.
The highlight for her, though, was listening to Drim talk about some of the adventures he had been on. She thought he was making them up at first, but she changed her mind when he told them with so much detail. Plus, she didn’t figure him for the type to lie easily. Mazie brought out a board game which they all played together while Drim told another story. Once they were done, Phon pulled out her phone to check the time and said, “Oh, it’s almost to [500], I guess I should go make something for lunch, do you have any requests Mazie?”
“Oh wow, you can cook?!” she asked in disbelief while staring at Phon who now had a slightly hurt expression.
“Yeah, she may not look like the homey type, but she’s a surprisingly good cook. I can see how you wouldn’t get that impression, though,” Drim interjected. Phon looked like she wanted to retort, but couldn’t hide her smile from being praised by him. She went to the kitchen and came back with an apron. As she put it on, she asked for a request again before heading back in.
“If you’re such a good cook then I’ll be happy with anything you make!” is what Mazie had said with a wide-eyed expression in eager anticipation. A few minutes had passed since then and she couldn’t take her eyes off what was now resting on the table in the living room. Phon had taken off her belt with the pouch to be able to put on the apron properly and set it there.
Mazie could see the gleam of the yo-yo shining out from within the pouch and couldn’t resist wanting to play with it. She looked over at Drim, who was currently distracted reading something on his tablet. She decided this was her chance and reached over to the pouch. She had just gotten it open and was about to grab the yo-yo when she heard Phon yell behind her, “Ahhh! Don’t touch that!”
Unbeknownst to Mazie, Phon had been keeping an eye on them with her vision from the kitchen, and dashed over when she saw Mazie grabbing at the pouch. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, that’s just a bit too dangerous.”
“I doubt she’d be able to lift it, the thing weighs at least a hundred pounds,” Drim quipped from across the room, not looking up from his tablet.
“Hmm, I guess you’re right. She wouldn’t be able to activate it either, guess I panicked over nothing. Well, either way, I guess we should find you something safer to play with,” Phon said as she hastily looked around before looking at the large knife in her hand she had forgotten she was holding. “Here!” she said with a smile and handed it towards Mazie.
Before Mazie could take it, a vine shot across the room and grabbed it from Phon’s hands. “That’s still not safe. She’s a human child, remember,” Drim snapped at her.
“Oh?” Phon replied confused. “I got my first knife when I was three. Guess we didn’t grow up in a normal family, though. Well, I’ll get back to it then,” Phon said as she turned around to head back into the kitchen.
“Wait,” Drim said suddenly, “I’ll help out a bit.” The vine with the knife, as well as several others that had just sprouted from him flew into the kitchen. Mazie, who had been watching all this, wasn’t afraid of them at all, she was amazed. She thought that they were either superheroes or aliens. Either way, she didn’t care and wanted to see what they’d do next. She raced after the vines and watched them chop, mix, and complete all sorts of prep work in lightning speed. By the time Phon got back to the kitchen, it was all ready to cook.
They all sat down and enjoyed the meal together. Mazie had no idea what she was eating, but it was delicious, better than anything that her mom had ever made. When they finished, Drim lifted up his tablet and presented the screen to them and asked, “Do you guys want to go somewhere fun?”
On the screen was an article for the local zoo. Nowadays with all kinds of new monsters and animals popping up all the time, it was pretty common for zoos to capture them and create new exhibits. This article was promoting a new ‘Platybear’ exhibit. Mazie stood up, lifted her arms in excitement and yelled, “Yeah, let’s go!”
◆◆◆
Bray was slowly walking home after a long day. She would walk faster if she could, and wanted to out of concern for Mazie, but was just too exhausted. She pulled out her phone and took a glance at the time. It was currently [887] which made her sigh heavily. It was very late, around the time Mazie should be going to bed if she hadn’t already.
She had wanted to get home early, but there was an important meeting she just couldn’t miss at work. She had texted Phon asking if it was alright if they stayed later, and Phon assured her that they could. This was a huge relief for Bray. They had definitely saved her today, and she definitely felt she needed to give them a large tip.
She knew they were looking for more stable work and considered asking them if they wouldn’t mind watching Mazie when they had time to spare. The idea even floated through her mind briefly of asking if one or both of them would be interested in becoming a full time caretaker for Mazie. Bray was a single mother who often worked late, so that kind of extra support would be nice, but she didn’t know if she could afford it and imagined that both of them would want something more out of a career, so the idea didn’t linger long.
This was all, of course, under the assumption that they had done well and Mazie enjoyed spending time with them. Mazie had called her earlier to get permission to go to the zoo and some other places. Bray was hesitant to agree at first, but Mazie had such enthusiasm in her voice that she just couldn’t turn her down. She let out a loud sigh of relief when she got home and entered through her front door.
It was rather quiet, so she looked around and the only light was coming from the living room. She walked in and found a scene that warmed her heart. Drim and Phon were sitting on either side of the couch with Mazie between them. Drim was reading something on his tablet and Phon was gently stroking Mazie’s hair, who had fallen asleep and was using Phon’s lap for a pillow. Wow, they look like a happy family, it makes me a little envious, Bray thought to herself as she looked on with a smile.
A few more seconds passed as she just stood there and stared happily before Phon noticed and locked eyes with her. Phon gently lifted Mazie’s head as she scooted out from under it then placed it down on the couch. Both Phon and Drim headed over towards her. Drim didn’t introduce himself but instead just gave her a slight nod and headed past her and out the front door. Bray couldn’t help but get that strange familiar feeling when she looked at him too.
Phon stopped next to her and whispered quietly, as to not wake the sleeping child, “Mazie tired herself out. She wanted to stay up and wait for you, but it looks like she couldn’t hold out any longer. I was just thinking about carrying her to her bed when you came in.”
“Really, thank you so much for today,” Bray said seriously, but in a hushed voice as well. She pulled out her wallet and took all the cash in it and handed it to Phon. “I won’t take no for an answer, you earned it. It looks like Mazie had a lot of fun with you two. I’ve never seen her sleep so peacefully.”
“Thanks… Oh,” Phon said as she pulled out her phone. She pressed a few buttons then Bray’s phone beeped. “We took a few pictures from when we went out today, so I sent them to your phone. I also included a digital version of our business card, be sure to tell your friends about us!”
“Oh I will!” Bray responded cheerfully and waved Phon off as she walked out the door. Bray looked at Mazie who was still sleeping on the couch and a wave of relief washed over her. Those two are so nice, I’m so glad they turned out to be such good people… I still can’t get this gnawing feeling out of the back of my head that I’ve seen them before. While she continued to watch Mazie, this thought drifted to the back of her mind.
She didn’t want to wake Mazie up just yet, so she decided to look at the pictures. She pulled out her phone and opened up the gallery sent from Phon. The first picture made her really happy and a little sad. It was of the three of them outside of a cage at the zoo looking at a platybear exhibit while they were all holding hands with Mazie in the middle. She was happy for Mazie to have gotten to go, and with what looked like close friends, but she was sad that she wasn’t the one who got to take her. Bray always meant to take her, but was always just too busy or tired to do so.
Her phone was just a normal flip phone, so she pressed the arrow key to pull up the next picture which caused those complex emotions to go shooting out of her. They were replaced with pure shock as she looked on in horror at the picture. They were still at the platybear exhibit, but now the three of them were riding on top of it. Phon was in the front with Drim behind her and Mazie riding on top of his shoulders, cheering with her arms.
These new feelings didn’t go away as she hurriedly looked through the rest. The next picture was of Mazie and Phon with pocket knives. It looked like Phon was teaching Mazie how to use it. The next one was Mazie swinging on a makeshift swing made out of Drim’s vines that were protruding from him. The next one was probably the one that worried her the most. It was them up in the air like they were flying. It looks like they’re skydiving, but where are their parachutes?! Bray screamed in her head.
There were a few more afterwards. It told a small story of Drim killing some creature she had never seen before as Mazie and Phon cheered him on. Then it showed Phon roasting that creature over an open fire. Lastly, it showed them eating it as a group for dinner. On what she guessed was the last photo was the three of them up on her roof staring up at the stars.
New thoughts soared through her head. Are these real? Why would they do this? Is Mazie okay? How did they manage to do this all one one day? How did they get around so fast? What is up with those vines?! Who took all these pictures?! Why can’t I remember where I’ve seen them?! Just who the hell are they?!
“Oh, mommy, you’re home.” That small voice caused Bray to snap out of her crisis and look over at Mazie. She was yawning as she sat up and wiped her eyes. After a few seconds of blinking, she looked excitedly at her mother and loudly exclaimed. “I had the best day ever! Can the Drazahs come play again soon?”
“Dra… Zah…,” Bray muttered to herself. Suddenly, all the news reports over the past few days she had left on in the background, and all the conversations she overheard from her coworkers came flooding back to her. She dashed to her front door, flung it open and scouted every inch she could see. The two who were there less than a minute ago were nowhere to be found.
Phon… Drim… Those names. That hair, that eerily familiar feeling. How could I be so blind? Is it really them?! Bray wondered as the panicked thoughts in her head resumed. She pulled up her phone and stared at it for a few seconds. She was sure of it, but didn’t want it to be true, so she was terrified of pressing the button to bring up the next image. Once she mustered the courage, the result caused her to collapse to the ground. Her phone fell out of her hand and the Fiends For Hire business card was displayed on the screen.
Fiends For Hire Text Conversation 2
Date: Monarchber 15th 2077
[406]
『Bray Pozin: Hi itz Mazie! :) I borowed my moms phone so i could msg u. She sad she ddn know when u guys culd visit agn. Do u thnk u can come gain soon?』
『Drim: We’d love to Mazie but you should probably get your mother’s permission first.』
『Bray Pozin: o ok. Well i just wntd to let u both know i had a gr8 time with u and I want to grow 2b up jst like u2!』
『Phon: Aww, well don’t go killing your mother to make it happen. She’s a good mother after all.』
『Bray Pozin: im not sur wut u mean but oky! :D』
[672]
『Bray Pozin: This is Bray. I’ve taken the phone back from Mazie. I won’t go to the police with this since she is unharmed, and I believe it would upset her if she knew I was the reason for your arrest. I appreciate that you were kind to her, but I’m afraid I can not tolerate your influence on her. Please never contact me or my daughter ever again.』
『Phon: Spoil sport』
『Drim: :c』