Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The development of Sunset Courts was laid out on a neat grid, sprawling as far as the eye could see.

There were rows after rows of beige-painted houses, set on evenly sized parcels, and following a pattern: a two-story with a double garage, a split-level with a side garage, a two-story with two single garages, and repeat. Every now and then, a lone ranch-style would break up the monotony.

“I can’t believe people live here,” Tommy muttered, shifting uneasily and fiddling with the tassels of his hoodie. They were standing on the sidewalk in the shadow of a tall border hedge, a few blocks from where the bus from Manberg had dropped them off. It had taken more than an hour to get here on the winding semi-rural lanes, and it was now late enough to be completely dark. Tommy grimaced as he thought of how long they would have to wait for the bus to take them back home in the wee hours of the morning, once they were finally done with this job.

“What do you mean?” Tubbo asked distractedly as he rummaged through the duffel bag containing their breaking-and-entering supplies.

“These houses. There are so many, and they all look the same. It’s weird, innit? You have to remember that yours is like, the fifth one on the ninth street, or you could go into the wrong one by accident.”

“Well … a lot of buildings in the city look the same too,” Tubbo said philosophically. “And these houses are probably a lot nicer inside than our flat.”

Tommy snorted. That wouldn’t be hard. Their flat was in a run-down part of the old city, in a fifth-floor walk-up. It was was tiny, had bugs, and the pipes made weird noises at night. And during the day. Tubbo had read somewhere that their building had been condemned at one point, decades ago, but the mayor’s office had misplaced the paperwork needed to proceed with the demolition. And these days, between the terrible economy and the flourishing network of extra-governmental Organizations like the erstwhile Heroes Society, the Syndicate, Las Nevadas, and others, the Manberg City Council had much bigger fish to fry.

So their building – along with all the other derelict ones in the old quarter – stood, for now.

And besides, it might be crappy, but it was also cheap, and most importantly it was theirs.

Tommy and Tubbo hadn’t clawed their way out of the proverbial pit to downplay the absolute luxury of having their own place, with no one else (besides the landlord) to answer to, no matter how run-down it was. Things had been much worse before, and Tommy knew in his heart that they could be again.

That was the reason Tommy had been moonlighting as the vigilante Red Panther for nearly three years now, ever since he and Tubbo, then aged 13, had escaped the charity school-slash-juvenile prison together and made their way to the city. Tubbo had joined him in vigilantism as Yellowjacket shortly afterwards. It was painstaking and difficult work, trying to help ordinary people with ordinary problems like muggings, petty crime, and abuse, while also staying under the radar of the major Organizations that had a choke-hold on the city and most of its businesses – and most of its crime. But Tommy liked to think that the two of them were making some difference, however small.

In a roundabout way, that was also why they couldn’t get a better flat. Tubbo and Tommy both worked part-time in different cafes, and Tommy also picked up shifts in the pet store. If even one of them could land a steady, full-time job, they could probably afford to move.

But finding one was harder than it sounded. Tubbo had arranged quite legit-looking fake IDs declaring them both 25, with diplomas to match, but with the economy so dire it hadn’t helped much – unless they wanted to start working for one of the Organizations.

Neither of them wanted to do that.

The Organizations were rich, powerful, and utterly ruthless and terrifying. Some, of course, were worse than others. But giving in and working for any of them would mean giving up on their true mission – making the city safer for regular people. For kids who were struggling, just like Tommy and Tubbo had been a few short years ago.

Back then, they could have really used some help.

So their work was (occasionally) rewarding, but … it still wasn’t a paying job. To pad their income, they picked up contract gigs where they could. Tubbo was primarily in charge of arranging those. And that was what had brought them here, to the Sunset Courts subdivision out in the suburb of Logstedshire, on a Wednesday night in early autumn.

Tommy scrunched up his nose in distaste. “Nah, it wouldn’t matter if they’re nicer inside. This place is just weird,” he said, shaking his head and burying his hands deep in his pockets. “Would you want to live in a place like this?”

“Probably not. Plus these houses are probably cursed, yeah?” Tubbo mused. “So our flat has definitely got that going for it. Curse-free.”

Tommy startled. “What?”

Tubbo rolled his eyes at him. “Tommy, didn’t you pay any attention to what I told you on the way here?”

“I did,” Tommy said defensively. He’d listened to all the bits about the how much they were getting paid for this gig (a lot, enough to cover most of next month’s rent) and how long it might take (just one or two nights, maybe three at most).

But he would definitely have noticed if Tubbo had said anything about curses. That meant that his best friend must have skipped over that little detail.

“Okay, so – again. There’s weird shit happening with these houses. They might be cursed. We’re here – and getting paid pretty well – so we can document as much as humanly possible about what’s going on.”

Tommy shivered slightly in the night breeze, tugging his hoodie tighter around himself. “What sort of weird shit, big man?”

“No one lives here long,” Tubbo said briefly, zipping the duffel shut and shouldering it. “All the houses are dark, yeah? Most of them are abandoned.”

Tommy stared at his best friend, confounded. Now that Tubbo mentioned it, the only lights were from the public street lamps. Not a single house that Tommy could see from where they stood had lights shining in any windows, or cars parked out front. And it wasn’t that late, just an hour or so after dusk. Everyone couldn’t be out or asleep yet, right?

“But … there are like a hundred houses here. All of them are abandoned? What the fuck?”

“Not all of them,” Tubbo allowed. “But most. There are a couple houses on the northeast side of the development where people are still living. So we’re not going over there. We’ll stick to the houses on the south and west sides.”

“But why are so many abandoned?”

“In almost all of them, the walls are crumbling,” Tubbo said as he started walking slowly down the sidewalk, into the development and towards the cursed houses. Reluctantly, Tommy trailed after him.

“The walls?” Tommy repeated after a pause. “So they didn’t build it right? What’s cursed about that?”

“You’d think so,” Tubbo agreed. “And when it first started happening, they thought it was just shoddy construction, so they had workers come in to fix things up. Easy, right? But then it happened again. And again. The same walls, in all the same houses.”

“Okay, that’s … weird,” Tommy allowed, shoving his hands deep into his hoodie pockets. “But why would anyone go to the trouble of cursing a bunch of walls to crumble?”

Tubbo shrugged. “Annoy people enough to make them move out?”

“But why?”

“From what Connor told me when he got us this gig,” Tubbo said after a moment, “the guy who’s actually hired us for this – Schlatt – he wants to buy the whole development. And he wants to know more about what’s going on here before he does.”

Tommy stared at Tubbo.

“So this Schlatt guy hired us? If he’s rich enough to buy a hundred houses, why doesn’t he hire like, magic experts? They could even un-curse it for him if it’s really cursed. Connor must be messing with us, big man.”

“The problem is that Schlatt doesn’t own the place yet. He hasn’t even agreed to buy it yet,” Tubbo said – a bit testily, Tommy thought. “So he can’t legally bring in his own people. He’s only got what the current owners say to go on, and apparently he doesn’t trust them. For reasons. So he wants us to find out more about what he’s getting into before he makes an offer and is legally obligated to put down a lot of money.”

“That makes sense … I guess,” Tommy said doubtfully.

“Hopefully we can just find something quickly and get it done,” Tubbo said, squaring his shoulders and casting a quick glance around as they approached the first house along the road. “We might as well start here. This is one of the houses with the crumbling walls.”

“You’re positive this place is empty, right?” Tommy eyed the dark windows and drawn curtains.

“Yup, should be. But wait – first, take these.”

Tommy stared at his best friend, wide-eyed, as he registered what Tubbo had just passed him. Three Ender pearls.

“Where the hell did you get these? These are crazy expensive!”

Tubbo smirked. “I made a deal.”

“What? What kind of deal? With who? You –”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tubbo said impatiently. “It’s fine. Look, just keep them on you, okay? Just in case we need to get out of here in a hurry.”

Tommy glowered at him. “If you’ve got so many of these, and it’s not a big deal, why the hell did we take that fucking bus here?”

“This is for emergencies, you moron,” Tubbo shook his head in exasperation. “And I’m giving them to you because all this talk about curses – well, it weirds me out a bit, you know? I don’t think anything super crazy is happening here, but just in case.”

“Let’s just get this over with fast, then,” Tommy growled. “And go home.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying. Should we go in through the front door, or the back?”

They exchanged a glance. Without another word, they ducked around the side of the house to approach through the backyard.

---

It was easy enough for Tubbo to shimmy the lock and pry open the sliding patio door.

Tommy stepped into a carpeted living room that connected, open concept-style, into a kitchen. Just this space was bigger than their entire flat. The house extended to several rooms beyond, as well as the entire second floor. There was a brown couch on the far side of the living room, but nothing else that he could see in terms of belongings. A strong smell of mold hung in the air, further convincing him that the place was abandoned.

“You’re right,” he muttered as Tubbo followed him inside, leaving the patio door ajar in case they needed to make a quick exit. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s living here. Even we’ve got more stuff than this.”

Tommy found a light switch and paused. “Should I turn it on?”

“No,” Tubbo said briefly. He retrieved a torch from his bag of supplies and switched it on, sweeping it around.

Immediately, they both saw the problem.

The walls were covered with an expansive and deep pattern of cracks, crawling up from floor to ceiling like spiderwebs. It looked like the ground during a long drought, baking under the unforgiving sun.

Except it was indoors. And everything else about the place – from the pristine carpet to the modern kitchen with shiny appliances and light-colored cabinets – looked like a typical, new-ish suburban house.

“Hey, look at this,” Tommy said, stepping towards a wall.

“What?” Tubbo pointed the torch towards Tommy, who winced against the glare.

“This one is fine.”

Tubbo blinked and stared at him, and then at the wall behind him.

“Look,” Tommy ran his hand over the smooth surface. “This wall is fine. It’s the only one that’s fine.”

“That’s … weird,” Tubbo looked baffled.

“Maybe they’re built differently?”

“Why would someone build three walls in the same house one way, and another one different?”

They looked at each other, and Tommy shrugged.

“No idea, big man. But what now? What have we got to do for the job?”

“I’ll take some pictures,” Tubbo said slowly. “But beyond that … the walls are definitely cracked again, but how can we tell why?”

“Maybe we should look at a few more houses,” Tommy suggested. “See if there’s anything in common, yeah?”

“Good idea.”

---

The second house – the one next door – was much the same. It had an almost identical layout, and was also almost completely devoid of furnishings.

Again, three of the walls were deeply fractured, like the craquelure of an old painting. Here, the damage was severe enough that small fragments of painted drywall had actually fallen onto the carpet.

And again, the fourth wall was pristine.

Tubbo stared at it meditatively.

“Isn’t it the same wall?”

“Huh?” Tommy replied from the kitchen, where he had found some abandoned – but not expired – bags of chips tucked into a pantry.

“The fourth wall,” Tubbo repeated. “The one that’s not cracked. Wasn’t it facing the same direction in the other house?”

“I guess …” Tommy said through a mouthful of chips, walking out into the living room, bag in hand.

“It’s also the north wall,” Tubbo said, checking the map of the neighborhood.

“Mmkaaaay …”

“Okay, yeah, the front door is that way, this group of houses faces west, so yeah – this is the north wall.”

“Is that important?” Tommy mumbled, small pieces of chips spraying out as he spoke.

Tubbo made a face at him, but then admitted, “I don’t know.”

Tommy turned a slow circle where he stood, munching on the chips as he surveyed all of the walls.

“Hang on,” he said suddenly. “Do you think this wall is, like, thicker?”

“What do you mean?” Tubbo demanded.

“Look – here, the edge of the wall and the edge of the patio door are right next to each other. So the wall’s pretty thin, right? But over on this side, with the wall that’s not crumbling, the edge of the window is here near the end of the room, see? But –”

Tommy dashed outside the open patio door and stood on the deck, pointing. “But look, the edge of the window is here, but the edge of the house isn’t til way over there.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “You’re right,” he breathed. “How did you spot that?”

“Observation is my second superpower,” Tommy grinned at Tubbo, puffing out his chest proudly.

Tubbo rolled his eyes. “Okay, boss man. You know …” he trailed off appraisingly.

“What?”

“I think we should knock down the wall,” Tubbo said.

Tommy gaped at his best friend.

“What the hell? Why?”

“Because maybe there’s something hidden inside,” Tubbo said, his eyes gleaming. “Maybe that’s why it’s thicker, why it was built different.”

“Why would anyone hide something in the wall of a random house?” Tommy asked, baffled. “It’s not like they could go back and get it whenever they want.”

Tubbo paused as he considered this. “Maybe … it’s something they’re trying to get rid of.”

“Seems like a lot of work.”

“I want to look,” Tubbo declared. “We’re here anyway, right?”

“Have you got stuff to knock down walls in that bag of yours?” Tommy asked skeptically.

Tubbo grinned. “Actually …”

---

“This is crazy,” Tommy hissed, about half an hour later, as the pair of them crouched in the backyard. They were huddled behind a picnic table next to the border hedge, as far away as they could get from the patio door.

To Tommy’s astonishment and slight horror, Tubbo had pulled explosives out of his breaking-and-entering duffel. After a little tinkering, he had put together what he called “just a small bomb, really” and placed it at the interior corner of the un-crumbled wall, and then hustled Tommy outside.

“Someone will hear this,” Tommy continued, looking around in agitation. “And then they’ll call the cops. And then what?”

“No one will hear it,” Tubbo said calmly. “It’ll just be a minor blast, enough to crack the wall so we can peek behind it.”

Without any further warning, he pressed the detonator.

There was a muffled THUMP from inside the house.

Tommy let out his breath. That wasn’t so bad –

They both jumped at the thunderous noise, like an avalanche of stones, that followed. A cloud of fine dust billowed out of the open patio door.

“Shit!” Tommy hissed, grabbing at Tubbo’s arm. “Someone will definitely have heard that!”

Tubbo looked startled, his hand still clasped around the detonator. “I … that’s weird. Didn’t expect that. Let’s go take a look.”

“What? Are you crazy? We need to get out of here!”

“Tommy, stop freaking out,” Tubbo said impatiently. “I told you, these houses are all abandoned. There’s literally no one nearby who could have heard. And we’ve already done it, so we might as well look, yeah?”

Tommy groaned, raking a hand through his blond curls and making them stand on end. But he trailed after Tubbo back towards the house.

“See, look – that’s why,” Tubbo called out from the living room. “That wall was made of bricks, not wood.”

Tommy stepped inside.

There was a huge pile of debris in the corner where Tubbo had placed the bomb. Large pieces of drywall were on the carpet, exposing the remains of a brick wall behind it. Half of the bricks had collapsed, exposing a large hole.

Pulling his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth against the dust, Tubbo approached the hole and angled the torch beam inside.

“Be careful,” Tommy scolded. “More bricks might fall on you.” He coughed slightly against the dissipating cloud of dust and pulled his hoodie over his nose. “You know, this Schlatt bloke may not be happy to hear you’ve blown up half the house he’s planning to buy –”

“Tommy.”

Tubbo’s voice was tense and odd, with a note in it that drew Tommy immediately to his side, wading through the rubble.

“What is it?”

Tubbo turned to look at him, his blue eyes blown wide.

“Tommy, there’s a body in there.”

Chapter Text

“A body,” Tommy repeated. “You mean a human body?”

“No, I mean a squirrel’s body,” Tubbo snapped, his voice high and tight with stress. “Yes, a human body! Look –”

He thrust the torch at Tommy and stepped out of the way.

Unwillingly, Tommy edged closer and shone the torch into the gap.

There were actually two brick walls – the inner one, which Tubbo had half-collapsed with his bomb, and an outer one which had been largely untouched by the blast. Between them was a gap of almost two feet.

Wedged inside the gap were remains.

It was a small, sad bundle. The child – because it was obviously a child – had been bound hand and foot before being sealed into the wall. The ropes were still clearly visible over the bones. The rotting, dust-covered clothes suggested a tee shirt that had once been bright green and red, with a cartoon character on the front.

Tommy staggered backwards, away from the brick tomb and into the open space of the living room.

He stared at Tubbo in horror.

His best friend stared back. Tears cut a path down Tubbo’s dust-covered cheeks, but he wasn’t making a sound as he wept.

“Tubbo,” Tommy tried. He coughed, swallowed down bile, and tried again. “Tubbo, that’s a kid. That’s a kid in there.”

“Who –” Tubbo whispered, voice wavering. “Why – how could anyone do this?”

Tommy shook his head and made a beeline for the open patio door. He staggered out onto the wooden deck and sat down abruptly. He took several deep breaths of the blessedly cool night air and stared up into the sky. It was cloudless. The stars were twinkling down on them, distant and benign. The only sounds were the faint chirps of crickets and the rustling of leaves in the breeze.

He felt, rather than heard, Tubbo come outside after him. He looked up as his best friend leaned heavily against the wooden railing of the deck, taking deliberately long and deep breaths.

“Tommy,” Tubbo whispered after a moment. “The other house. The other houses.”

Tommy stared at him blankly, and said “What?”

“Is it … do you think it’s the same?”

“What?” Tommy repeated, unable to process the question.

“The houses,” Tubbo repeated, his voice brittle with horror. “Is this … the curse? Do all of the houses with crumbling walls have … do they all have bodies inside their walls?”

All of the –

“No,” Tommy said immediately, shaking his head. “No. Tubbo, that’s impossible. There’s like a hundred houses here, and you said most of them – no. That’s impossible.”

They stared at each other, and without saying another word they knew that they would have to check.

---

The smell of vomit mixed sickeningly with that of dust, paint, and mold.

Tommy swallowed back a sob as he sat, knees pulled up towards his face, his back pressed against one of the crumbling walls.

This was unreal. An hour ago, they had innocently gotten off the fucking public bus and walked straight into a nightmare.

They were back inside the first house, where they'd repeated the exercise with the explosives. And the horrible, prophetic guess that Tubbo had made had turned out to be true.

The remains behind the wall in this house belonged to an even smaller child, who had once worn a dress with pink and white ruffles.

Tommy stared numbly as Tubbo screamed wordlessly, a visceral howl of fury and grief. His best friend grabbed fallen bricks in both hands and threw them hard against the patio door. The glass shattered, the bricks landing with distant thuds on the lawn. After the tinkling of falling glass subsided, the house fell back into its previous ominous silence.

They sat without speaking for a few more minutes, the oppressive stillness of the empty house broken only by the harshness of Tubbo’s breathing.

“Tubbo,” Tommy said finally, shakily. He felt cold – the breeze through the now-shattered patio door was drying the tears on his face.

His best friend’s breathing hitched, but he didn’t respond.

“Tubbo,” Tommy repeated, louder, and Tubbo turned to look at him, eyes wild.

“We need to leave,” Tommy said quietly. “We need to get out of here and call the police. There’s nothing we can do here, Tubs.”

Tubbo swallowed hard, and then nodded.

And then he froze, staring at the crumbling living room wall next to Tommy’s head.

Tommy followed his gaze and froze as well.

A light shone through the darkness, casting a distorted circle on the pock-marked wall. It held steady for a second, and then flashed off.

Tommy drew in a sharp breath. Someone was outside – someone with a flashlight. Eyes wide, he stared at Tubbo.

“We’ve got to go. Now,” Tommy whispered. “Out the patio door, cut across the yard. Okay?”

“Put on your mask,” Tubbo whispered back, reaching for his pocket to retrieve his own yellow and black mask. “Just in case.”

Tommy nodded, and an instant later they were Red Panther and Yellowjacket again. And then –

“Hello there, children,” an unfamiliar male-sounding voice called from just outside the front door. “Will you come out and talk to me?”

Tommy and Tubbo stared at each other.

The front door rattled as the person tested the knob.

“Come on, now. I know you’re in there. Please? I just want to talk to you.”

“Could it be the cops?” Tubbo asked faintly.

“Come on out here,” the voice repeated, louder. “Open the door. I just want to meet you.”

The voice dipped into a saccharine croon. “Come on, now. I’m really nice, you know.”

“No,” Tommy whispered. “Go.”

They dashed out the open patio door and into the backyard - 

– and ran headlong into a second man, who was wearing dark armor and a black, featureless mask.

Tubbo shrieked in alarm as the second man’s hand clamped down on his arm with bruising force. He lashed out, reflexively, but the man’s armor was thick and he barely even flinched at the blow. Something fell to the ground –

Then the man abruptly let go of Tubbo with a shout as Tommy tackled him from the side, sending them both tumbling across the long grass. Tommy quickly disentangled himself and nimbly leapt out of reach. But the man was also up again in just a second, growling as he lunged at Tommy. But then, he fell back again as Tommy threw one of the bricks that Tubbo had flung out into the yard, landing a hard blow on the man’s face.

“Run!” Tommy shouted at Tubbo, dancing backwards as the man sprawled on the lawn, groaning.

“My phone –” Tubbo cried, looking around wildly in the overgrown grass.

“Never mind that!” Tommy shouted. “Let’s go –”

“Use the pearls!” Tubbo gasped, grabbing his arm and pulling him back towards the house.

Right. The pearls. Tommy had completely forgotten about them.

Just then, the man from the front door – it had to be him – leisurely turned the corner into the backyard, his body language as languorous as if he were attending a garden party. Horrifyingly, this man was wearing a serial killer-esque white mask with a smiley face painted on it, and he casually carried what looked like an axe propped on his shoulder.

“Tommy!” Tubbo shouted, snapping his attention back to the second man, who had now regained his footing and was also advancing on them.

“Use the pearls and go home!” Tubbo cried. “I’ll meet you there.”

“But –”

“GO!” Tubbo shouted, and threw his pearl, vanishing.

Panicked, Tommy fished a pearl out of his pocket, threw it in a random direction – he had no idea which way he was supposed to go – and felt the power of the pearl tighten around him.

But then, just as the spell triggered, a hand grabbed his shoulder –

Tommy swore as he fell heavily onto dirt- and leaf-covered ground, another body crashing down almost right beside him.

He scrambled to his feet, slipping and sliding on the loose foliage, as he frantically tried to get his bearings. On the plus side, he was no longer in the yard of the cursed murder house. On the minus side, he also wasn’t anywhere that he recognized. It looked like a forest. There were just trees and random vegetation in every direction he looked.

Except right in front of him. There, struggling to his feet, was the smiley-masked man. He had somehow latched onto Tommy right before the pearl activated.

Without a word, Tommy turned and sprinted into the woods.

“Hey, wait, come back!” he heard the man call after him, followed by the sounds of heavy footfalls in a surprisingly swift pursuit.

Shit! The bastard was gaining on him. Desperately, Tommy dug around in his pocket as he ran headlong, crashing through the brush. Tubbo had given him a bunch of pearls, hadn’t he? Where the hell were the other ones?

“Come on, I just want to meet you,” the man half-crooned, half-laughed, sounding barely out of breath and uncomfortably close behind him.

There! Tommy’s fingers closed around another pearl. Lungs burning and hoping against hope that he was going the right way, he threw one as hard as he could and felt the teleportation pull him –

– now he was running through some kind of massive, almost empty parking lot. Okay, that meant he was closer to the city right? That was good. He threw the last pearl and was yanked –

– straight into a crowd of people.

Tommy skidded to a stop, narrowly avoiding running into anyone. The piney smell of the woodlands where he had just been running for his life was gone, replaced by the familiar stench of a Manberg alley. He stared, wide-eyed, at the dark clothes and armor worn by almost everyone surrounding him, the guns in holsters – and in more than a few hands – and the sigils on the masks and the capes and –

Oh shit. Shitshitshitshit –

Somehow, the godforsaken pearl had deposited him right in the middle of a fucking Syndicate throw-down.

In a distant part of his brain, he felt utter relief that at least he had his mask on.

Frantically, Tommy searched his empty pockets – fuck, that really had been the last pearl – and looked around wildly for an exit route. But behind him was a solid brick wall, covered in grime and graffiti. And in the other direction –

“Well, we weren’t expecting to see you here today, mate,” a horribly familiar voice said.

Unwillingly, Tommy turned away from the wall to meet the amused, mocking gaze of the Angel of Death.

“Come to join the fun, Theseus?” the Blade drawled from the side, his eyes gleaming like rubies behind the boar-skull mask. The villain casually hoisted his massive axe over one shoulder, the edges of the metal suspiciously dark and wet-looking.

Tommy gulped. Behind the Blade’s imposing form, someone – or a pile of someones – was lying oddly still on the floor of the alley.

“I … I’m really sorry, folks. Didn’t mean to interrupt your – uh, night out. I’ll just be going, yeah?” he edged sideways, towards the mouth of the alley.

“Leaving already?” the Angel said lightly, stepping forward into his path. The sharp beak of the villain’s corvid mask reflected eerily in the moonlight. “Stay awhile. We’re very interested to hear how you came to find us here.”

Think. Tommy just needed a moment to think, and he could decide –

“Wait! You don’t hurt kids, right?” he blurted out. Yes, that was part of the whole Syndicate shtick, right? That’s why they went after that other gang last year, the one that murdered those teenagers, what was their name, the Syndicate had exterminated them –

“Why?” Nemesis asked, head tilted curiously behind her sea-blue mask as she stared at Tommy. Behind her, Lethe’s black-and-white mask hovered, half-obscured in the darkness.

“Aww, is our favorite vigilante finally admitting that he’s just a wittle child?” Siren crooned, dark eyes dancing behind his midnight blue mask.

“What? No! What the fuck –” Tommy paused and filed away the bit about being the Syndicate’s favorite anything at the back of his mind, to freak out over later, and took a deep breath. “Look, I know you don’t have any reason to believe me,” he said, his voice wavering despite his efforts to keep it steady, “but I just found something bad. Something really bad. I don’t know who did it, or who all’s involved, but they’re serious wrong’uns. They’ve killed a bunch of kids. Please. Help me – can you help?”

Dead silence rang, broken only by the soft creak of leather and armor as the Syndicate members shifted, exchanging glances.

“Tell us more,” the Angel commanded, all traces of humor gone from his voice.

“We – that is, I, I was following a lead about these houses. This bougie neighborhood north of the city. Fancy, pretty new construction, but no one stays long, yeah? Weird shit keeps happening there. And when we – when I – went to investigate, I found bodies. Of kids. In the walls.”

“Kids. In the walls of the houses,” the Blade repeated flatly.

“Yes!” Tommy nodded frantically, willing them to understand. “I checked two houses, man, you’ve got to believe me. They each had a body sealed in the north-facing wall. They were kids, both of them –” Tommy choked, coughing slightly. “One of them was really small, just a baby. The other was older, maybe like 10? I don’t know. But there might be more. There are probably more.”

“What the fuck …” Siren murmured, staring at the others.

“Why would anyone do that?” Lethe demanded, looking back and forth between Nemesis and the Blade.

Tommy let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. They seemed to believe him. This was good, right? They could go investigate. The Syndicate had infinitely more resources than he did, they could actually do something to help. Right. They could go, and do something about the situation. And he could … leave, and go find Tubbo.

He inched backwards.

“Some kind of ritualistic murders?” the Angel asked, staring intensely at the Blade.

“A serial killer,” the Blade growled. “But targeting children?”

“We need to go check this out,” Lethe said, urgency radiating through his voice.

Tommy inched backwards some more.

– and froze, as the Syndicate turned as one to face him again. He had managed to make a little progress while they were talking to each other, but the mouth of the alley was still some distance away.

“Where did you say this was, again?” Siren asked, the freakishly tall villain erasing all of Tommy’s progress by taking two long strides towards him.

“The subdivision is called Sunset Courts. In Logstedshire. About an hour from here,” Tommy said, casting another nervous glance towards the mouth of the alley.

“Alright,” Siren said decisively. “We’ll leave now. You can show us exactly where.”

Tommy stared at him in alarm, shuffling backwards. “Oh no, you don’t need me, big man. You can look in the first two houses. It’s obvious. I’d just be in the way. In fact, I’ll just get out of your way right now –”

“This could be a trap,” Nemesis put in warningly, and the Angel nodded, cold and hooded eyes fixed on Tommy.

A massive hand closed around Tommy’s bicep, freezing him in his tracks. He stared at it, tracing up from the wrist to the arm to the chillingly fierce eyes of its owner.

“You’re coming with us, Theseus, and showing us exactly what you found,” the Blade said menacingly, his hand squeezing tight enough to bruise. “And if things aren’t exactly as you say they are, you’d better have a damn good explanation for wasting our time.”

---

It was one of the most awkward car rides Tommy had ever experienced.

He was in the middle seat of one of the Syndicate’s large black SUVs, squeezed in between Siren and Nemesis. Lethe, the lucky bastard, was folded into the back-most row behind them on his own, while the Blade sat in the front passenger seat and the Angel was behind the wheel.

Apparently the Syndicate drove themselves to their own murder-alley outings, who knew?

Somehow – probably because they didn’t stop anywhere, like the bus had – the trip to Sunset Courts went by much faster than last time. Before Tommy knew it, they were pulling into the dark, eerily quiet subdivision, and the Angel parked smoothly at the curb in front of the first house.

“This it?” the Blade asked, peering out the tinted window. “The house with the kid in the wall?”

“One of them,” Tommy said stiffly, waiting as Siren climbed out of the vehicle. The villain turned and held the door open for him with a mocking flourish.

Neck prickling with tension, he led the parade of villains around the house, towards the yard.

How was this even his life?

To his relief, there was no sign of either the smiley-masked man – who might still be wandering around that forest, for all Tommy knew – or the other one.

There was also no sign of Tubbo.

Tommy sent out a silent prayer that Tubbo had made it safely home to their flat.

He picked his way through the shattered glass on the deck from the patio door and stepped into the living room, missing the glance the Angel and the Blade exchanged behind him.

Siren wrinkled his nose as he, Nemesis, and Lethe walked in; the smell of vomit lingered in the air. The living room now felt very crowded.

“This is weird,” the tall villain commented, turning to survey the three crumbling walls.

“Let’s have a quick look around first,” the Angel said, casting his eye over the half-demolished wall and the other crumbling ones.

At his words, the Syndicate dispersed deeper into the house, searching for – Tommy didn’t know what. After a moment, they reconvened in the living room. “Everything’s clear,” Lethe reported.

“In there,” Tommy said, gesturing towards the remains of the brick wall.

The Blade gave Tommy a penetrating look as he picked his way through the debris and over to the brick wall, the Angel close on his heels.

Tommy watched tensely as the Blade was pointed a small flashlight into the gap. He turned and handed the light to the Angel, and then stepped back and crossed his massive forearms, staring at Tommy.

The Angel took a look and then turned back to fix Tommy with an intense stare.

“So, what’s the story now, mate?”

Tommy blinked at them.

“Nothing’s in there,” the Blade clarified with a shrug, his eyes like burning red embers behind the boar-skull mask.

Tommy’s jaw dropped.

“What? No, that’s impossible –”

He stumbled through the rubble, ignoring the close proximity of the two villains, and peered inside the gap where the smaller child, the one dressed in the white and pink ruffled outfit, had been curled up.

It was empty.

“It was here, I swear!” Tommy exclaimed, swinging around to face the villains. “I don’t know what happened – no wait, that guy! He must have moved the body –”

“‘That guy’?” Siren drawled. “Really, Red?”

“No, seriously –” Tommy swung around to glare at the tall villain.

“You’ve never interfered with our business before, so we’ve returned the favor, turning a blind eye to your vigilante activities,” the Angel said, stepping closer towards Tommy. His tone was somehow both clinical and menacing. “But you should know that we don’t take kindly to having our time wasted.”

Tommy gaped at the Syndicate leader. “But I’m not! I’m telling you the truth. Why else would I bring you here –?”

“To get us out of Manberg?” The Blade leaned against the kitchen counter and regarded Tommy with hooded eyes. “Is something happening in the city tonight that you wanted us far away from for a couple of hours?”

Tommy groaned, tugging on his hood in frustration. “No, I swear! Look, you see the walls, don’t you? That’s why we – I – came here. To investigate why this is happening. And then I found the bodies! And when I ported into the alley, it was because I was running from these two guys who showed up here. One of them must have moved the body before we got back here. Wait – look – I can prove it to you. Let’s go to one of the other houses –”

The Syndicate members exchanged a glance.

“But –” Siren began.

“What do the walls have to do with it?” the Blade demanded, eyes narrowed.

“I think we should hear him out, Angel,” Nemesis said suddenly, and everyone paused to look at her.

“We’re already here anyway,” she continued, unknowingly echoing Tubbo’s rationale from a few hours ago. “And on the off-chance that there really is something going on with children being murdered, we need to know.”

Tommy felt a wave of relief at the unexpected support.

“I agree,” the Angel said, eyeing Tommy appraisingly. “So what’s next, mate?”

Tommy took a deep breath. “Let’s go to one of the other houses, alright? One that we – that I didn’t visit yet. Those guys might have removed the body from the next house, too, but they wouldn’t have had time to remove ones that are still sealed in.”

I hope, he thought, feeling a little ill. He didn’t want there to be more bodies, for sure, but he was fairly certain there were.

And he definitely didn’t want to find out what the Syndicate would do to their ‘favorite’ vigilante if they decided he was screwing with them.

“Um, do you have something that can knock down a brick wall?” he asked diffidently.

The Angel and the Blade exchanged another glance, and the latter straightened.

“There’s a sledgehammer in the car,” the Blade admitted tersely.

“Okay,” Tommy breathed. “Okay, let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Siren was crying.

Tommy shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he stood by the sliding door, watching uneasily. The villain’s shoulders shook as he sat, head in hands, on the edge of the patio. Lethe was huddled in the corner by the kitchen counter, similarly overcome.

To the side, the Blade was taking out his despair and fury on the remains of the brick wall, demolishing it in large chunks with hacking blows from the sledgehammer.

A small bundle lay on the floor nearby, covered by the Angel’s dark green cloak.

This was the third house the Syndicate had checked so far. Counting the two he and Tubbo had found before, that made the bodies of five children. So far.

Tommy felt strange. Stranger. It was strange to see adults cry. Especially a villain like Siren. The man was a maniac, and he and his Syndicate co-workers were undoubtedly responsible for many deaths themselves. It was different for them – Tubbo had cried after they found the first body, and Tommy admitted that he, too, had wept after they found the second. But despite their hardscrabble life, Tommy and Tubbo were technically still teenagers. They felt things. Adults – officially villains or not – were different.

Or so Tommy had thought.

“Theseus … Red.”

Tommy jerked to attention and saw Nemesis and the Angel staring at him.

“What …” Nemesis began hoarsely, and then shook her head. “How did you come to find out about this?”

“And who,” the Angel said, his voice bitingly bitter, “is responsible?”

“I don’t know who,” Tommy shoved his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders as he shook his head before looking back up at them. “It was just a contract job, to come here.”

“A contract job,” Nemesis echoed, as the Angel tilted his head, unnervingly bird-like, as he stared at Tommy. “But you’re a vigilante. What kind of job is this?”

Tommy shrugged defensively. “I take odd jobs, you know? Being a vigilante doesn’t exactly pay the rent.”

“Who hired you?” Nemesis asked, frowning.

“And what exactly were you hired to do?” the Angel added, stepping closer.

The Blade dropped the sledgehammer with a jarring thud that rattled the remaining walls, and turned to listen.

“I never met the guy. Our contact said his name is Schlatt,” Tommy said, watching warily as Nemesis’s posture stiffened and Lethe gave a low hiss. “He’s some rich guy, lives over in the East District. He said he’s planning to buy this place.” He paused. “Not this house, I mean. He’s planning to buy the entire development. Like a hundred houses.”

“According to what they told us … Schlatt and his people know there’s something wrong with the houses, but don’t know exactly what,” Tommy continued, hunching tensely. “The walls keep crumbling, and no one lives here long because of it. They were guessing it’s something magical, some kind of curse, maybe. So they wanted to get a better idea before Schlatt commits to the deal. He doesn’t want to buy it if he can’t sell it to anyone after fixing things up, I guess.”

“And why you?” the Angel asked, pacing slowly across the wreckage of the living room.

“Huh?”

“Why did Schlatt hire you, of all people, to do this?”

“You got some kind of special experience in building inspection that we don’t know about, sunshine?” Siren said, suddenly appearing at the patio door, his voice hoarse.

“N-no,” Tommy said defensively, stumbling at the unexpected pet name. “I don’t know why, the job just came to us – me. The money was good for what sounded like a night or two just looking around in some abandoned houses. I do what I can, y’know? Not all of us are rich bitches who can pick and choose.”

The Angel hummed in acknowledgment, continuing his path through the rubble.

“I mean … it’s obviously not some kind of official inspection,” Tommy continued, somehow compelled to say more as he eyed the villains. “But our contact – he said Schlatt can’t hire official people to go through til he’s got some more contracts or shit. I don’t know the details. So he hired uh – me. He said if I could sneak in and get some pictures of the extent of damage and stuff, he could use it to negotiate, get a better price.”

Nemesis laughed blackly, shaking her head as she turned away.

“And how,” the Blade asked ominously, “did you know to look in the walls?”

Tommy bristled at the villain’s tone. “Do you think I had something to do with this? What the hell –”

“You should tread carefully, mate,” the Angel said, his gaze icy and piercing behind his corvid mask. “Right now you’re the only one we can link to this … atrocity.”

Tommy glared at them, eyes wide with offense. “Un-fucking-believable. I try to help and you try to pin this on me –”

“You keep saying ‘we’,” Siren interrupted, stepping back inside. “Who was here with you?”

“I didn’t say –”

“Yes, you did,” the Angel cut in, watching Tommy closely.

Tommy swallowed. This was so shit, he was surrounded by villains, why did Tubbo ever take this job, why did that stupid pearl have to drop him in that particular alley, he needed to get out of here and find Tubbo, he needed –

“Tell us,” the avian villain said commandingly, taking yet another step towards Tommy.

“Okay,” Tommy said, stepping backwards, away from the Angel, and flinching when that put him closer to Siren. “Okay! It was me and … a friend, we came here together. It was actually my friend who got us the job. And he was the one who figured out there was something fishy going on with the walls. We broke into a few of the houses to look around and take pictures, and we noticed that the walls were crumbling. Again. Most of these houses were renovated –”

“Renovated,” Siren echoed, eyes narrowed. “But this subdivision is just a few years old.”

“Yeah, I told you, weird stuff has been happening here,” Tommy replied.

“No shit,” Lethe muttered.

“Anyway,” Tommy continued resolutely. “T – my friend, he noticed that it’s always the same three walls that are crumbling. The fourth one is always just fine. The north wall. It was the same in both the houses we looked in. So … we got curious, you know? We decided to break one of the un-crumbled walls. And then. Well, you know.”

“No, actually, we don’t know, mate,” the Angel replied, stepping even closer. Tommy pressed his back up against the crumbling wall.

“Where’s your friend now? And how did you end up dropping into that particular alley where we were tonight?”

“Some men came here. They chased us,” Tommy whispered. “We used Ender pearls to get away. That’s it, I swear. I didn’t know the pearl was going to punt me out in the alley where you were. I didn’t know. I swear! And I asked for your help because – well,” he laughed with a tinge of hysteria, “don’t you think this is an emergency?”

There was a moment’s silence.

Tommy was so tense, it felt like even a little bit more tension might shatter him. He was cornered in a murder house, hell, in an entire murder neighborhood, with the Angel of Death looming less than an arm’s reach away, penned in by Siren, with the Blade and Nemesis waiting on the margins.

How was this even his life?

“And who are your friend and the broker?” The Angel said finally. “Would either of them have any additional knowledge about this?”

Tommy opened his mouth to vehemently deny this, but Siren spoke before he could.

“His friend is obviously Yellowjacket. He doesn’t have any other friends.”

Tommy swiveled around to stare, open-mouthed, at the villain in outrage.

“And the broker?” The Angel was watching him closely.

“His name is Connor,” Tommy said reluctantly, praying that their friend would forgive Tommy for shining the Syndicate’s spotlight on him and that he wouldn’t blacklist them forever. “He’s gotten us jobs for a couple of years now. I’m positive he doesn’t know anything about this.”

“Well, someone knows something,” the Blade spoke finally, his voice darker and more dangerous than Tommy had ever heard it.

“Indeed,” the Angel said, his gaze still fixed on Tommy. “And until we find out exactly who that is, you’ll be coming with us, mate.”

---

Tommy sat, his hands folded in his lap, in the Syndicate’s SUV. He stared fixedly at the leather back of the seat in front of him.

“You can relax, you know,” Siren said from where he was sprawled in the next seat over, his voice still sounding rougher than usual. “You’re safe here.”

Tommy shot the tall man a dark look. “Didn’t sound that way when your mate the Angel was threatening me back there, innit?”

Siren gave a low laugh. “The Angel doesn’t actually think you had anything to do with this.”

Tommy blinked, and then twisted in his seat to glare directly at the Syndicate villain.

“Then what was all that ‘you’re the only one we’ve connected to this atrocity’ shit about?”

“That’s true enough,” Siren said evenly, leaning down to peer out the window back towards the house, where the other Syndicate members were still doing … something. “We don’t know who’s behind this, who all is involved. Yet.”

Tommy heard the menacing undercurrent to those words clearly. The Syndicate would find out soon whoever was responsible for this, and then that person or people would be dismembered. Probably very publicly.

And Tommy … honestly wasn’t too bothered by the idea. He and Tubbo had always taken pains to avoid the Syndicate and the other major Organizations, and all the violence they left in their wakes, but this – this was different.

Those were little kids in those houses.

Whoever was responsible deserved whatever the Syndicate could do to them, and more.

“I need to go find T – Yellowjacket,” Tommy said finally, turning back to stare at the leather seat back. Not that he’d been inside a lot of them, but this was definitely the most pristine-looking SUV he’d ever seen. How did the Syndicate manage to keep it so clean, when they obviously took it to crime jaunts?

“I need to make sure he’s okay,” he added.

Siren hummed in acknowledgment, crossing his arms as he leaned back to regard Tommy. “Ah yes, your friend. Compatriot. Partner in crime – or vigilantism, rather. Where do you think he is?”

“We have a place we’re supposed to meet,” Tommy said reluctantly. If the Syndicate didn’t already know that Red Panther and Yellowjacket lived together, he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them.

“Where?”

“I’d really rather not say.”

They stared at each other.

“Well, if you won’t tell us where to go, we can’t take you there,” Siren said finally.

Tommy shot another brief glare at the villain and returned to staring at the seat back. “I don’t need you to take me there. I just need like, a lift back to Manberg and then I’ll be out of your hair, y’know?”

“You’re really better off staying with us. Aren’t you at all concerned about the men you said were chasing you?” Siren eyed him with interest.

“Well … they don’t know where we’re supposed to meet, either,” Tommy said defensively, feeling a sliver of doubt take root at the villain’s words.

“But they know who you are.”

Tommy was silent. Both he and Tubbo had been wearing their vigilante masks when they encountered the smiley-masked man and his friend. While Red Panther and Yellowjacket weren’t exactly household names, their masks were distinctive enough. If the men had gotten a good look at them … any unscrupulous, enterprising minor villain in Manberg could point them in Tommy and Tubbo’s direction based on the description.

… and any night now, he might look up to see the smiley-masked man standing on the fire escape, peering into the window of their flat, his sing-song voice calling, “Come out, I just want to talk to you!”

Despite himself, Tommy shivered.

Siren was still watching him closely.

Then the man twisted, reaching into the back row of seats.

Tommy jumped, flinching when a soft mass suddenly hit him. He lashed at it and then realized it was heavy cloth – a coat. He gave Siren a questioning look.

“You look cold,” Siren said, settling back into his seat. “Put it on.”

Tommy stared at the material in his hands. It was a nice coat, made of thick, soft wool. It was much nicer than any coat he or Tubbo had ever owned, and was clearly expensive.

Did the villain really intend for Tommy to wear it?

“It’s not going to help if you just look at it.”

Tommy shot the man a dark look and then struggled into the coat. It was definitely too long and big for him, but it was very warm.

The pair sat in near-companionable silence for a few minutes.

Then the front door opened suddenly, and Tommy jumped again.

The Blade stuck his head inside the SUV, peering at him before turning to look at Siren.

“We’re heading back to the city now. The Angel and Nemesis are staying to handle some things here.”

Siren nodded. “What about backup?”

“Warden is on his way,” the Blade said briefly, “with more vehicles.”

Tommy shuddered slightly at the mention of the gas mask-wearing, trident-wielding villain. Yet another Syndicate member he would be more than happy to never meet again.

Both villains turned to look at him.

“And what about Theseus?” the Blade asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow at Tommy.

“He says he has a meetup point with Yellowjacket arranged,” Siren said placidly. Tommy’s eyes widened in alarm.

The Blade nodded curtly. “We’ll stop there.”

“You don’t need to do that, big man,” Tommy said shifting uneasily. In fact, please don’t. “If you could just drop me off back in the city …”

“We insist,” the Blade said, his eyes gleaming. Siren, beside him, gave Tommy a dangerous smile.

---

Tommy’s saving grace came in the form of a text message.

The Blade had just pulled the SUV over to the curbside in downtown Manberg near City Hall, a few blocks from the beginning of the old city, when his phone blinked, signaling an incoming text.

Siren, having apparently received the same text, said, “It’s from the Angel. He wants us to run an errand while we’re here.”

Tommy shuddered slightly at the thought of what kind of errand the Blade and Siren would get sent to run. He doubted it was picking up milk.

“What about Red?” Siren asked, nodding at Tommy.

The Blade turned to look back at Siren, and then shifted his gaze to Tommy, who sat as still as he possibly could in a forlorn hope that they would decide to let him go.

“Lethe can escort him,” the Blade said briefly, nodding to the villain who this time was seated in the front passenger seat.

Tommy let out a short breath. Okay. This was still bad, but maybe not as bad as he had thought. Where they were parked right now, the Syndicate was already uncomfortably close to Tommy and Tubbo’s usual stomping grounds. Letting the villains find out the actual location of their flat was absolutely not an option, so Tommy would have to get away from them somehow. But if it were just Lethe, Tommy felt he had a pretty good shot. He could ditch the lanky villain and then circle back to the flat. That would be a lot easier than trying to lead Lethe and Siren and the Blade on a wild goose chase through the old city.

Then they were all piling out onto the sidewalk, which was completely deserted in the stretch between midnight and the witching hour. The Blade remote-locked the SUV and then turned to Lethe. “We should be finished in an hour or two. You alright with this?”

Lethe nodded.

The Blade turned towards Tommy, his posture and tone turning infinitely more menacing. “Don’t try any funny business. If you give Lethe any trouble, he will take you out, understood?”

Tommy nodded, trying to lean as far away from the trio of Syndicate villains as he could without actually stepping backwards.

Siren clapped Lethe on the shoulder and then he and the Blade vanished around the corner.

Lethe cleared his throat and looked at Tommy. “So … where to?”

“Uh, this way,” Tommy said, setting off in the direction opposite to his and Tubbo’s flat.

---

Tommy looked around at the empty hallway and sighed with relief, fishing his keys out of his pocket to open the front door.

It had taken some doing – a few quick turns down dark alleys and judicious use of fire escapes – but he had managed to lose Lethe in the maze of the old city. Then he had circled back and crept into the derelict building in which their flat was located through the back door.

Now, if Tubbo was home as well, everything would be just –

“So, this is your flat?”

Tommy jumped like a scalded cat and whipped around to gape at the black-and-white masked villain who stood in the shadows a few feet away.

“What the – how the hell did you find me?” he cried.

Lethe tilted his head and looked at him curiously. “It wasn’t hard. I knew you were going to try to ditch me, so I kept an extra eye out.”

An extra eye? Tommy let out a shuddering breath as he tried to quickly decide what to do next.

Lethe nodded towards the front door and repeated, “So, this is your flat, then? This is where you’re supposed to meet Yellowjacket?”

Okay. Tommy was officially out of ideas. He was standing here with his key literally inserted in the lock of his front door. He couldn’t pretend this wasn't his flat … or could he?

He cleared his throat. “This … isn’t my flat.”

Lethe gave him a disbelieving stare.

“It’s just a safe house,” Tommy declared. “It’s … one of many safe houses.”

“Right,” Lethe said, his voice heavy with skepticism. “You just happen to have a whole bunch of safe houses.”

“Don’t you?” Tommy demanded.

“Well … yes,” Lethe admitted. “But we’re the Syndicate. And you just told us that you take odd jobs to make rent.”

Tommy glowered at him.

“But whatever this place is, clearly you meant to come here,” Lethe continued, sounding surprisingly patient. “So we might as well go inside, right?”

Okay. Now Tommy was officially out of ideas.

He took a deep breath, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door.

On one hand, he was desperately hoping to see Tubbo standing there, ready to yell at him for taking forever to get home. On the other hand, he definitely did not want to see an unmasked Tubbo coming face-to-face with a Syndicate villain.

Unsurprisingly, one of his wishes was granted. The flat turned out to be dark and empty.

Tommy blew out a breath. Where the hell was Tubbo? Had his best friend thrown all his Ender pearls in the wrong direction and ended up far away from Manberg? Was he slowly making his way back to the city on another bus, or hitchhiking, or something?

And Tommy couldn’t even call him, because Tubbo had lost his phone during the struggle with the second man –

Tommy froze. The phone. Their phones were among the few valuable possessions they owned. What if Tubbo had circled back to Sunset Courts to get his phone back? What if he had run into the second man again? The second man had obviously been hanging around for a while, moving the first two bodies before Tommy and the Syndicate got there –

Suddenly, a brilliant idea struck him. The Ender pearls. Tubbo had said that he had more, right? They had to be hidden somewhere here in their flat. If Tommy could just find Tubbo’s stash, he could kill two birds with one stone. He could use the pearls to get away from the Syndicate, and then he could quickly double back to Sunset Courts and hopefully meet up with Tubbo there.

Tommy knew all of Tubbo’s favorite hiding spots, even the ones Tubbo thought he didn’t know about. He just needed a few minutes to search –

“So, when is Yellowjacket going to meet you here?” Lethe asked doubtfully, looking around the dark, sparsely furnished flat, and the piles of empty takeout boxes next to the rubbish bin. “Did you arrange a time?”

Tommy snarled under his breath. He had almost forgotten about the oddly amiable villain.

“Um … yeah,” he replied, thinking fast. “He should be here soon.” He gestured at the moth-eaten, musty smelling couch. “Make yourself comfortable.”

He quickly ducked into the bedroom. Tommy and Tubbo didn’t have beds, per se, but they had accumulated a nest of sleeping bags and assorted blankets that was comfortable enough most of the year. Tommy had also recently scrounged an air mattress from a coworker at the pet store who was moving away, and they were taking turns on that. Tubbo complained that it always felt cold, though.

Now, where to look first? Tommy knew he had to hurry before Lethe followed him into this room. Tubbo liked to hide things in the lining of his superhero sleeping bag. A pouch of Ender pearls would be just the right size to hide in –

Yes!

Tommy grinned triumphantly as his hand closed around a canvas bag with contents that felt the right size and shape to be pearls. There had to be nearly a dozen in here. How had Tubbo managed to get all these?

He hurriedly shoved the pouch into his pocket and stood, turning to face Lethe as the villain cautiously poked his head into the bedroom.

Lethe stared down at the pile of blankets and then blinked at him.

“He should be here any minute, big man,” Tommy said breezily, pushing through the bedroom door and forcing Lethe to step backwards. “Do you want anything to eat? Drink?” He made his way towards the tiny kitchenette on the other side of the living room and bent to peer inside the mini-fridge.

“Um … no, thank you,” Lethe said politely, moving to stand by the couch.

Suddenly, Tommy stiffened and straightened, turning to stare at the front door.

Lethe noticed the change in his posture, and immediately tensed. “What is it?” the villain whispered.

“Did you hear something at the door?” Tommy whispered urgently.

“No …” Lethe said doubtfully.

Tommy hissed. “See! There it is again. I’m going to go check it out –”

“Wait!” Lethe exclaimed, stepping forward.

But before the villain could intercept him, Tommy had torn the front door open and tossed one Ender pearl down the cavity of the stairwell.

And then, before Lethe could even process what had happened, Tommy was already at ground level. Laughing breathlessly, Tommy rushed out onto the street, another pearl already in hand.

Chapter Text

“Oh shit,” Ranboo whispered. The rest of the Syndicate would not be happy to hear that Red Panther had gotten away.

That Ranboo had let Red Panther get away.

Ranboo clenched his jaw. He had been trying so hard to convince the others that he was now old enough to help out more, that he was ready for a more mature and important role. Phil and Niki in particular were insistent that Ranboo was still too young and should be sheltered – or coddled, depending on who was telling the story. “You’re not even 20 yet, you shouldn’t be worrying about these things,” his adoptive older sister would say soothingly, and Phil would always agree, “There’s plenty of time, mate, no need to rush.” At least Techno and Wilbur were open to giving Ranboo tiny smidgens of extra responsibility from time to time.

Like, for example, escorting Red Panther to his flat.

“There was only one door,” he groaned, rubbing his eyes beneath his mask. Looking back, it was obvious what had happened. The slippery vigilante must have had a stash of Ender pearls hidden somewhere in the shockingly dilapidated flat, and Ranboo had stupidly left him alone long enough to retrieve them.

Well, what was done was done. Now Ranboo just needed to make the right next decision – which would be to text Techno and Wilbur and let them know what had happened.

R [2:34am] ………….. Im really sorry, he got away.

T [2:34am] ………….. R u hurt?

R [2:34am] ………….. No

T [2:35am] ………….. Sit tight. Be there soon.

Sit tight. Ranboo sighed.

Well, he wasn’t going to try sitting on that couch, that was for sure. He was sure he had seen a bug crawl out of it a few minutes ago.

Almost half an hour had passed, with Ranboo pacing slowly around the unlit flat, browsing his phone, when he startled at the sound of a key inside the lock. Wilbur and Techno wouldn’t be using a key.

Prudently, he stepped into the shadowy nook behind the front door and watched as it swung open.

One person entered and without pausing, walked a few feet into the darkened flat. “Tommy?” they called, in a tight and anxious voice.

It definitely wasn’t Red Panther – not that Ranboo was expecting him to come back. This new person was noticeably shorter than the annoying vigilante. Considering how comfortably they had walked into the flat, this must be Yellowjacket, finally arriving for the long-awaited rendezvous.

“Tommy?” the person called again, sounding even more urgent and worried. Then they switched the lights on.

It was a kid.

“You’re Yellowjacket?” Ranboo asked incredulously, staring at the kid. Or maybe teenager. Kid-faced teenager.

The kid yelped in alarm and jumped, spinning around to face Ranboo, who emerged from behind the door.

“What the fuck – who the hell are you?” the kid demanded. “Get the fuck out of my flat!”

Ranboo narrowed his eyes. “This is Red Panther’s flat.”

The kid’s eyes widened in alarm and he glared at Ranboo belligerently. “What? No, it’s not. What – why would you say that?”

“Because I was just here with him,” Ranboo said exasperatedly.

“You were with – what did you do to him?” the boy hissed, blue eyes flashing with a surprising amount of venom as he advanced on Ranboo.

“Nothing!”

“Who the fuck are you, anyway? You’re breaking and entering, right here. Get the hell out before I call the police!”

Ranboo laughed at that. “Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend that. I’m with the –”

Wilbur and Techno, in their full Syndicate regalia, chose that moment to step through the open door into the flat. The kid might not have recognized Lethe, who thanks to certain overprotective people wasn’t exactly a well-known member of the Syndicate, on his own, but he definitely recognized Siren and the Blade. He went very, very still when he saw them.

“What do we have here?” Techno asked, looking back and forth between Ranboo and the kid.

“I think this is Yellowjacket,” Ranboo explained, taking advantage of the kid’s frozen stance to reach out a long arm and snag him by the bicep. This immediately broke the kid out of his seeming trance, and he lashed out at Ranboo.

Wilbur’s eyebrows shot skywards. “No … no, that’s not possible. That’s a child.”

“I’m not a child!”

“That’s a toddler,” Techno said, his voice heavy with disbelief, ignoring the kid’s increasingly hostile, invective-filled responses as he tried to twist away from Ranboo.

Ranboo shrugged helplessly. “He came into the flat. He didn’t break in, he had his own key.”

“Shit,” Wilbur muttered, turning to look at Techno worriedly. “Does that mean Red Panther is a kid, too?”

Techno went very still as he considered the idea.

“Or maybe this is Red Panther’s kid?” he offered, and Wilbur frowned in thought.

“Who are you?” Wilbur asked, turning to address the blond boy.

“What did you do to him?” the boy snarled.

“Nothing!” Lethe repeated, exasperated. “What’s your name?”

“Fuck you!”

“That’s an odd name,” Wilbur replied dryly, pulling out his phone.

“What happened with Red Panther?” Techno asked Ranboo.

Ranboo shrugged helplessly, holding the hissing and spitting kid at arm’s length.

“He had a stash of Ender pearls in here. I didn’t realize in time. I’m sorry,” he added humbly. Beside him, the kid went quiet as he processed this information.

“Don’t worry about it,” Techno replied, shaking his head. He turned to Wilbur, who was scrolling through something on his phone. “What are you doing?”

“I’m in the City Council’s database, searching the rental contracts for this building – ah, here we go. Unit 517 is rented to one Tubbo Underscore and Tommy Innit.”

Ranboo glanced sideways at the kid, who had gone pale with his nails buried deep in the fabric of Ranboo’s reinforced sleeve.

“According to the city records, they’re both 25 and … hmm, didn’t earn enough to owe any taxes last year, not too surprising,” Wilbur continued, glancing critically around the flat.

“That kid,” Techno jerked his chin at the kid, who now wore an expression somewhere between worried and murderous, “definitely isn’t 25.”

“Hang on, I’m searching … hmm. Here are photos of them, okay, wait, so this kid here is definitely Tubbo Underscore,” Wilbur said, nodding towards Tubbo as he continued to scroll.

“Yeah, he was calling for Tommy when he came in,” Ranboo confirmed, ignoring the blistering stare the kid aimed in his direction.

“But … okay, that’s weird,” Wilbur said, peering at his phone.

“What?”

“These photos are from three years ago, from the records of a state charity school. But that school is primary and secondary only, which means students would be 18 or 19 at most when they finish. So that means these two would be at most 22 now, not 25. These records are definitely doctored.”

Wilbur looked up again to where the kid was now standing deathly still, his arm still locked in Ranboo’s grip, and flashed him a sharp-toothed grin. “And probably by quite a few years. Because 22 … I don’t know, that still doesn’t seem likely to me. Look at that pudgy widdle baby face!”

He laughed as the kid snarled at him, yanking on Ranboo’s arm.

“Okay, so he’s a kid lying about his age to get by,” Techno said, tilting his head. “It happens. But do we know for sure he’s Yellowjacket?”

“Well, this is definitely Red Panther’s flat,” Ranboo said, looking at Techno earnestly. “He tried to ditch me and come here, but I caught up with him.”

“Seems pretty conclusive,” Wilbur said, looking over at Techno.

“So, what is it then, kid?” Techno asked, fixing the kid with a stare.

“Tubbo,” Wilbur added helpfully.

The kid tried one last time to wrench his arm out of Ranboo’s grip and then gave up.

“Alright. I’m Tubbo. And yes …” he said reluctantly. “I’m Yellowjacket. My friend Tommy’s Red Panther.”

“And how old are you, really?” Techno asked, his eyes narrowed.

The kid – Tubbo – was silent.

“We’ll find out, you know,” Wilbur said patiently. “It’ll just take a little more time but we’ll dig up your real records.”

“… we’re 16,” Tubbo said finally.

The three Syndicate members looked at each other, Ranboo wide-eyed, Wilbur frowning fiercely, and Techno looking pained.

“Shit,” Wilbur said succinctly.

“The Angel’s not going to be happy about this,” Techno said, shaking his head.

---

Tommy leaned back against the hard plastic seat as the nearly-empty bus to Logstedshire finally pulled out of the main depot, and sighed with relief.

He had debated whether to take the bus again, since it was such a slow and meandering route, and he really needed to find Tubbo as soon as possible. But since he didn’t know what would be waiting for him back at Sunset Courts, he also didn’t want to squander Tubbo’s stash of Ender pearls by using them to get all the way back there.

Plus, he was exhausted. The bus would take about an hour, so at least he could catch a much-needed catnap. He sank down in the seat, the collar of the soft woolen coat bunching against his neck into a makeshift pillow. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets, and his right hand brushed an oddly lumpy section of the lining. He hesitated and felt it again, more carefully.

Tommy was still wearing the coat Siren had given him when they were sitting in the SUV back in Sunset Courts. The coat was high-quality and undoubtedly pricey … so why would it have a lumpy hem in the pocket? Wasn’t that the kind of thing rich bastards like the Syndicate hired tailors for?

… what if it was lumpy because it had some kind of tracking bug inside?

Tommy closed his eyes and groaned. He was so stupid! That must be how Lethe had found him before. And since Tommy was still wearing the coat – well, the annoyingly tall black-and-white masked villain would probably be waiting for him at the very next bus stop.

Without stopping to think, Tommy yanked on the stop cord and the bus rumbled to a halt.

“Seriously?” the bus driver said in exasperation as Tommy sprinted past her. “We’re just a block from the depot, mate, you couldn’t have walked –?”

Ignoring her, Tommy dashed back towards the bus terminal and hopped onto the first bus he saw – oh, excellent, this one was headed to the southeast suburbs, almost the opposite direction from Logstedshire. He dropped the coat on one of the plastic seats near the rear of the bus and dashed back out just before the bus began to move.

“Hey!” the only other passenger on the bus called after him. “Hey, kid! You forgot your coat –”

Ha! The bus doors closed on their remaining words as Tommy jogged back to the other side of the depot, towards the stop that buses going to Logstedshire departed from, feeling triumphant. That ought to keep Lethe and the Syndicate occupied and confused for a little while.

Now clad only in his own jeans and hoodie, Tommy shivered as he sat on a bench by the Logstedshire stop, waiting for the next bus to arrive. It was now the chilliest part of the night. Hopefully someone in need of warm clothes would make use of Siren’s jacket, he thought wistfully. But – well, hopefully the Syndicate wouldn’t bother that person too much once they caught up with them. Tommy winced and sent a silent, psychic apology to the future owner of the jacket.

About 15 minutes later, another bus rumbled to a halt at the stop and Tommy boarded. He sank into one of the seats in the back and closed his eyes with relief as the meager warmth from the bus’s heating vents swept over him.

---

Tubbo sat stiffly on the couch and listened as members of the Syndicate – the Syndicate! – stood in his living room, talking.

When he first saw them, he had been sure he had escaped being murdered in Sunset Courts only to be murdered in his living room. But for some reason, all they were doing was talking. To each other.

The Blade was on the phone with someone, speaking very quietly as he paced in front of their tiny kitchenette, which happened to conveniently also block Tubbo’s path to the fire escape.

Meanwhile, Siren and Lethe were standing a few feet away from Tubbo – and blocking the only route out to the hallway.

“He ditched me in the back alleys, but then I remembered he was wearing your coat,” Lethe was explaining to Siren. “And you had that emergency beacon sewn into the lining, so I just tracked him here using that.”

Oh Tommy, what happened to you? Tubbo thought anxiously. Worry and guilt were mixing sickeningly in his gut. Tommy had been supposed to come straight back home. Even if he had gotten lost like Tubbo had, due to errant throws of the pearls, or if he had to come a long way on foot, Tubbo had expected that the worst that could happen was Tommy being a few hours late. How on earth had Tommy managed to get into so much trouble instead, bringing the fucking Syndicate to their doorstep?

For the umpteenth time, Tubbo mentally cursed Connor. Their previous contract gigs had all been minor stuff, like following someone and taking photos or tracking down a stolen item when there was some embarrassing reason the owners didn’t want to go to the cops. Nothing like this.

This was his own fault, Tubbo thought grimly. He should have been suspicious about the amount they were being offered for this gig. Nothing came free, he knew that, and he'd gotten greedy. And now he and Tommy were paying the price for it.

And they still needed to call the cops about Sunset Courts, Tubbo thought, pursing his lips in despair. Now, sitting on their couch at home, it felt so unreal. It was hard to believe that they had really found the bodies of those little kids just a few hours ago. He could almost imagine it had all just been a bad dream, except for the presence of –

Tubbo looked up and saw that both Siren and Lethe were now looking at him.

“What?” he demanded, glaring at them.

“So, Tubbo,” Siren said thoughtfully, taking a few steps towards the couch.

Tubbo tensed again. It was downright eerie to hear his name come out of Siren’s mouth. And now the Syndicate knew both their names. And their vigilante identities, and their address, and – Tubbo tried to calm his racing heart. It would be okay. They'd have to move, is all. Once he got Tommy back, they'd just leave Manberg and get new identities and start over –

“Red Panther – Tommy – told us you were together when you found the bodies. Can you tell us more about that?”

Tubbo froze and stared up at the tall villain. What. Had Tommy told the Syndicate about what they had found at Sunset Courts? Why the hell would he do that?

“The … bodies?” he echoed, trying to buy time.

Siren raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “The bodies at Sunset Courts. The bodies of children,” he said, his voice growing cold. “Is there anything more you can tell us?”

“Tommy told you about it?” Tubbo said slowly. “We found two bodies there …”

“We found three more a few hours ago.”

Tubbo stared up at Siren speechlessly. So their fears had been correct, there were more bodies. Then it must be true – was it all the houses with crumbling walls – practically every house –?

Siren was watching him carefully. “And how many more do you expect we’ll find, Tubbo?”

Tubbo swallowed and shook his head. “Were the walls crumbling in the houses you checked?” he croaked.

“Yes,” Lethe said, his gaze darting between him and Siren.

“It’s the walls – that’s the indicator,” Tubbo whispered. “I think all the houses with crumbling walls … I think they’re all the same. I think they all have bodies.”

“And how many of the houses have crumbling walls?” Siren asked, his eyes narrowed.

“Almost all of them,” Tubbo said, his voice barely audible. “The entire subdivision is … mostly abandoned.”

The temperature seemed to plummet in the room as Siren and Lethe stared at Tubbo.

“What –” Lethe choked out.

Before he could say anything more, the Blade pocketed his phone and strode the few feet back into the living room.

“I’ve updated the Angel,” he reported. “We’re sending a bigger team back to the subdivision in a few hours. Most likely mid-morning. Not at all shockingly, the Council and police are taking their time to get into gear. Las Nevadas also agreed to help, but the Heroes Society is stonewalling, probably because of that bastard Schlatt. But I think – and the Angel and Nemesis agree – that our first priority before that should be retrieving Red Panther, since we don’t know the whereabouts of the other two men who seem to be involved in this.”

He turned to stare down at Tubbo, his red eyes seeming to glow behind the boar-skull mask. “Unless you happen to know where they all are?”

Tubbo shook his head silently, not sure how to take this influx of good and bad news.

“Red Panther was still wearing Siren’s coat when he left,” Lethe offered. “I’ve been tracking it. He’s moving, I think in a car or maybe a bus? He’s headed south.”

South? Tubbo blinked. Why would Tommy be going south?

“Do you know where he’s going?” Siren asked Tubbo, who shook his head again.

“Then let’s go,” the Blade said, moving to open the front door.

---

It was still a few hours before dawn. The bus had made good time. 

Mask in place, Tommy crept stealthily into the darkness of the backyard of the first house in Sunset Courts. This was where they had been, he was sure, when the two men had attacked them. This was where Tubbo had lost his phone.

If the phone wasn’t there, that might mean Tubbo had already come and gone. Tommy grimaced. What if Tubbo had gotten his phone and then gone back to the flat and ran into Lethe, who might still be hanging around?

But that wasn’t likely, Tommy reminded himself. If Tubbo had his phone, he would have called or texted Tommy by now. Or … what if the second man had grabbed Tubbo’s phone, when he was moving the bodies? Tommy shivered.

But if the phone was still here …

He looked around at the still silence of the neighboring houses. The other Syndicate members appeared to have left for the night. Probably Tommy could just scoop up the phone and hunker down to wait for Tubbo?

Suddenly, pain shot through his foot and Tommy swore softly, hopping away.

It was a brick, hidden in the long grass.

Tommy took a sharp breath as he remembered. Tubbo had thrown bricks out into the yard. And then Tommy had thrown one, at the second man, hadn’t he? Okay, that meant the phone must be right around here somewhere.

He knelt down and used his own phone to illuminate the area. Where could it be? He crawled a bit to the left and –

There!

His hand closed around the black rectangle of Tubbo’s phone, and he sat back onto the damp grass with a sigh. So that meant Tubbo hadn’t been back yet. So … he should probably find a place to wait for his best friend. Tommy definitely didn’t want to go back into any of the houses, though. He looked around. Maybe he could find a comfy corner somewhere in the yard …

And then strong arms seized him roughly from behind.

Before he could cry out, a foul, chemically-smelling cloth was clamped over his nose and mouth by a black-gloved hand. Tommy breathed in reflexively as he struggled, and darkness rapidly overtook his vision.

---

They had followed the beacon in Tommy/Siren’s jacket on a meandering route through the southern reaches of Manberg. Tubbo felt the frustrated tension in the Syndicate’s SUV ratcheting upwards each time Lethe reported another seemingly random turn. Where was Tommy going?

Then the beacon had abruptly come to a halt in the Arts district. The Blade parked the SUV at the curb and they hopped out onto the sidewalk.

Tubbo looked up and down the deserted street. It was still early, but the sky had begun to lighten.

“He should be around here,” Lethe murmured, looking down at his phone. “The tracker is accurate to within a hundred feet or so, right?”

Siren motioned for Lethe to hand him the phone, and the younger villain did. Then Siren made a sharp left, and the rest of them followed him down the sidewalk towards an alley.

And Tubbo blinked and stared at … a guy.

It was a random, unkempt looking man who – judging from how he was squatting in the alley next to a closed theater at dawn – probably lacked housing. But he wore a rather new- and expensive-looking long jacket.

The man’s gaze passed over Tubbo disinterestedly, but froze when he caught sight of the boar-skull mask looming behind the teenager.

Everyone in the city knew that mask.

Siren reached out a long arm and grabbed the man by the collar of the jacket, pulling him to his feet.

“Where did you get this coat?” Siren demanded, his voice icy.

“It’s mine!” the man replied in alarm, trying unsuccessfully to pull away.

“Try again,” the Blade said, stepping forward menacingly.

“Okay, okay!” the man cried, his hands shakily going to the buttons. “It was on a bus! Someone had just left it on a seat. I looked around for the owner, I swear! But – but – no one was there, and it was cold, so I just – I’m sorry, please just take it –”

Siren sighed and released him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told the man briefly. “Keep it.”

Tubbo glanced back at the man who still stood, frozen, with his fingers on the buttons, as the Syndicate filed out of the alley.

“So the kid figured out the tracker,” the Blade observed. “Clever. So now what?” He turned to look down at Tubbo.

Tubbo swallowed and clenched his fists. Tommy, where are you? If only he had his phone –

Tubbo froze. His phone. Tommy knew that he had dropped it –

“When you were at Sunset Courts,” he said urgently, turning to face the Syndicate, “did Tommy pick up a phone?”

“A phone?” Lethe echoed, shooting the Blade and Siren a confused look. “Pick up from where?”

“When that guy attacked us,” Tubbo continued, his words rapid and clipped, “I dropped my phone in the backyard. And Tommy knew it, so maybe –”

“Maybe he thought you would go back there to get it, so he also went back there to look for you,” Siren finished. He exchanged a thoughtful glance with the Blade. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Is there any other place he might go?” the Blade asked, red eyes fixed on Tubbo. “Any other place you two like to hide out, or meet up?”

Tubbo shook his head. “Since our flat is out, maybe he would wait outside my work? Or his? But neither of us had a shift scheduled today …”

“But wait – he still has his phone, right? We could just track it?” Lethe said, looking between the Blade and Siren.

“Good idea,” the Blade said with a nod. He turned away to pull out his phone and began to type.

Tubbo blinked and then grimaced. It was so obvious. They should have just tracked Tommy’s phone from the start instead of wasting all this time. But, he acknowledged, who knew that Tommy was going to ditch the coat on a random bus?

Or wait – why didn’t he simply call Tommy? Tubbo cursed his stupidity.

He spun around to look at Lethe. “Can I borrow your phone? To call him,” he explained.

Lethe blinked at him and wordlessly handed it over.

Tubbo dialed the number and shifted tensely as he waited.

It went to voicemail.

Tubbo cursed and tried twice more, with the same result.

“In the meantime,” Siren said, “I think going back to Sunset Courts is the better move. We can ask the Angel to have someone keep an eye on places here in the city where he might turn up.”

Reluctantly, Tubbo handed the phone back to Lethe.

“You’re right,” the Blade said after a moment. “Warden just set up the trace. His phone last pinged back in Logstedshire.”

---

Tommy’s head was pounding, and he felt nauseous. He struggled to open his eyes; it felt like his eyelids were weighted down.

There was an odd, repetitive sound.

First there was a scrape, and then soft thud, followed by one or a few sharp clicks.

Scrape. Thud. Click.

Scrape. Thud.

Tommy forced his eyes open just a crack, in time with the click. It was dark. There was an odd but familiar smell, an unpleasant mixture of mold, paint, and chemicals.

Scrape. Thud. Click. Click.

He was indoors … somewhere.

He tried to move, but then with a sharp spike of fear, he realized his wrists were tightly bound behind his back. And his ankles were tied together as well.

“Punz. He’s awake.”

“That’s alright. It’s almost ready.”

“Wha …” Tommy managed to lift his head, blinking. Who was that, talking?

“Should I give him another whiff?”

“Nah, don’t need to waste it.”

“Suit yourself.”

His surroundings resolved themselves in the darkness, and Tommy’s eyes widened in alarm. The sound he had been hearing – it was the sound of a wall being rebuilt, brick by brick.

Scrape. Crouching next to a small lantern, a man in dark clothes was pasting a layer of mortar cement on the brick. Thud. He slammed the brick on the opening – now noticeably smaller than it had been after the Blade’s demolition work. Click. And he tapped the brick a few times to settle it.

The sides of the wall were completely built, floor to ceiling, and the bottom third of the middle was done. Suddenly, in a flash of clarity and horror like a lightning strike, Tommy knew exactly why the builder had left a gap.

“Wait,” Tommy croaked.

“I’m sorry,” the smiley-masked man said, leaning over Tommy and reaching out a black-gloved hand. “You should have just come and talked to me. You had so many chances. But you didn’t take them, so this is how it has to be.”

“No!” Tommy cried, jerking away from his outstretched hand.

“Don’t make it any harder for yourself by screaming and trying to get away, alright?” the smiley-masked man continued in a gentle, high-pitched voice as if he were speaking to a small child. “Just be peaceful and quiet and accept that this is just how things worked out for you, okay? This is just how your little part in our story happens to end. But don’t worry, the story will continue. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Wait, no, no, please!” Tommy gasped as he wiggled, pulling against the restraints. He felt as slow and weak as a newborn kitten. “You don’t have to do this, please, I won’t tell anyone, I swear –”

“Can you stop him yelling?” the second man, who was building the wall, said aggrievedly. “We’re almost done here, I don’t want to deal with anyone else coming snooping around because of the racket.”

“No one’s going to hear him,” the smiley-masked man said earnestly. “The neighborhood is empty, has been for months.”

“We just had Organization people in here, because you let those kids get away,” the second man said coldly, overriding the smiley-masked man’s indignant protest. “Now they’ve finally left and we’ve got to clean up four more houses and be done with this shit before anyone comes back, or else it’ll cost a fortune to get rid of them. Redoing all this will take days. Couldn’t you have at least grabbed the second kid, too?”

“Please,” Tommy begged. “I don’t have anything to do with all this. Please, just let me go.”

“Enough already,” the second man said, exasperated.

The smiley-masked man shook his head with a sigh and squatted down next to Tommy. In a hideous mockery of affection, he stroked a gloved hand soothingly over Tommy’s cheek. Distantly, through a haze of terror, Tommy registered that his Red Panther mask was gone; the smooth leather was caressing his bare skin.

“You just never learned, did you? I tried to teach you, I really did,” the smiley-masked man said softly, shifting to run his fingers through Tommy’s hair. “But you wouldn’t talk to me when I asked you to, and then you kept on talking when I asked you to be quiet. Now there’s no more time for any more lessons, though, so don’t worry about it.”

“Please –” Tommy choked out, but then the smiley-masked man was pressing a foul-smelling cloth into Tommy’s mouth and tying another over it and behind his head to hold it firmly in place.

“Don’t worry,” the smiley-masked man repeated, continuing to stroke Tommy’s hair as he crouched next to him. Tommy tried to jerk away as he coughed and choked. The gag smelled like the chemical-doused cloth which had knocked him out before, but not as strongly. Instead of immediately sending him spiraling into unconsciousness like before, small black spots were beginning to dance in front of Tommy’s eyes.

“Don’t worry, we're almost done now. Just relax. It’ll all be over soon.”

So a few minutes later, Tommy could only thrash weakly and attempt muffled screams as they lifted him, the smiley-masked man by his shoulders and the second man by his feet. They put him through the opening in the outer wall and shoved him down into the crevice. It was a narrow space, and he was pinned in place. His shoulders were wedged so tightly between the two brick walls that he could have barely moved even if his hands and feet had been free.

So Tommy could only watch, barely able to distinguish between the black spots now taking up more and more of his vision and the light disappearing as the last rows of bricks were set into place.

Chapter Text

Sunset Courts looked different in the daylight, Tubbo thought. More ordinary. Less sinister.

“Well, we’re back,” Lethe said, trying for lightness but mostly sounding nervous as the Blade parked the SUV between the first and second houses.

The Blade sighed as he got out.

“Tommy might be in there,” Tubbo said urgently, motioning towards the first house. “That’s where we were when I lost my phone.”

“What does the phone tracker say?” Siren asked, frowning as he turned to the Blade.

“It isn’t that high resolution,” the Blade replied, shaking his head. “It just says the phone is in this general area. We have to search.”

“Let’s split up then,” Siren said, looking up and down the quiet street.

The Blade was silent for a moment, carefully scanning the surrounding houses for any sign of movement or surveillance. Then he nodded, turning back to Siren. “In pairs.”

There was nobody inside the first house. And Tubbo hissed in disappointment when he failed to find his phone in the backyard.

“Tommy must have been here,” he said urgently to Siren. “Otherwise where would it have gone?”

“What about the men who attacked you?” Siren asked, his tone grim. “Could one of them had taken it?”

Tubbo blew out his breath in frustration and shook his head. “Maybe.”

They met up with the Blade and Lethe out front, who reported that the second house was also empty.

“Should we try … calling out for him?” Lethe asked tentatively.

“No,” Siren replied, shaking his head. “Not until we have a team confirm that there’s no one in the vicinity.”

“Let’s continue, then,” the Blade said, nodding towards the other houses.

The third and fourth houses were the same. In the fifth house, Tubbo looked absently around the empty living room and kitchen and headed for the stairs, whispering “Tommy?”

Then he noticed Siren wasn’t following him. He paused and looked back.

The tall villain had stopped short in the living room and was frowning at something Tubbo couldn’t see. Tubbo frowned as well and took a few steps back down the stairs, and blinked when Siren suddenly strode back out the front door.

After hesitating a beat – should he just go search upstairs, never mind Siren? – Tubbo decided to follow him outside.

Lethe and the Blade had apparently finished with the sixth house already. Lethe was crouched, picking the lock to the seventh, while the Blade loomed next to him, keeping watch.

“Techno.”

“Siren,” Lethe hissed as Tubbo blinked at them, his eyes widening as he realized that he now knew the Blade’s name.

Siren ignored him, beckoning the others into the house. “Come look at this.”

“What?” the Blade – Techno, apparently – asked. He tore his suspicious gaze away from the swathe of abandoned suburbia and followed Siren into the house.

Lethe and Tubbo also followed, the former reaching out to place an irritating hand on Tubbo’s shoulder.

“Isn’t this the house where we found the third body?”

“I think so,” Lethe said uneasily, shuffling his feet, looking as if he’d rather not re-enter the scene. He kept up a firm grip on Tubbo’s shoulder though, the bastard.

“Look at the wall.”

The Blade looked. “What about it?”

“This is the third house, remember?” Siren pressed. “You demolished that wall with the sledgehammer before we were done.”

The Blade looked startled, and then stared at the pristine expanse.

Tubbo also looked. The wall looked shiny, gleaming in the morning light almost as if it were still coated with wet paint. Something about the sight made him feel very uneasy.

“It must not be the same house,” the Blade said, frowning. “Didn’t we skip one?”

“I think it is,” Siren replied, an odd intensity in his voice. “I don’t think we skipped any.”

“The contractors must have repaired it, then,” Lethe said slowly.

“What contractors?” Siren paced slowly in front of the wall, inspecting it. “We’re still investigating. No one is supposed to have been here.”

Someone must have got past the Syndicate, Tubbo realized, squirming in Lethe’s implacable grip. It was not a reassuring thought.

“Maybe the contractors were hired before?” Lethe asked, looking back and forth between Siren and the Blade. “And just happened to come by now to fix things up?”

“They must have come here in the middle of the night, then. The Angel, Nemesis, and Warden left here just an hour or so after we did.”

The Blade frowned, stepping closer to the wall and reaching out to trace the smoothness of the fresh, unmarred drywall. His fingers came away coated with a sheen of white paint. Then he turned and looked at the other walls.

“This paint is very fresh. And those walls are still cracked,” he observed flatly. “All of them. Even if these were previously scheduled contractors who for some reason came for a night shift, why would they fix this one and not the others?”

There was a beat of silence while the others considered.

“Maybe it’s because it was the most damaged?” Lethe offered, his eyebrows twisted into a frown behind his mask. “Maybe they wanted to get the biggest job done first.”

Siren hummed, sounding unconvinced.

“Maybe …”

He abruptly pulled out a dagger from his belt holster and slammed it into the drywall, making both Lethe and Tubbo jump. He poked a few more holes and then used the dagger to pry off a layer of drywall about a square foot in size.

Behind the drywall was a wall of solid brick, with fresh, neat mortar lines. The north wall had been completely repaired.

“They rebuilt the brick part?” Tubbo whispered, tension ratcheting up. “What – why would they do that?”

Siren dug his dagger into the mortar, chipping it away methodically. Within a moment, the carpet was covered with white chips and shavings, and the brick was wobbling. He wedged the blade under the brick and carefully wiggled it out, leaving a small hole in the wall.

He extracted a small flashlight from his belt and peered into the hole –

– and he recoiled, cursing.

“Shit! Techno –”

The Blade gently pushed Siren out of the way, plucking the flashlight from his hand. He angled it into the hole, squinting, and then growled.

A truly horrible feeling settled in Tubbo’s chest.

“We need to get him out, now,” Siren said urgently, knocking on the wall with his fist. “He might still be alive –”

“Is it Tommy?!” Tubbo cried, tearing away from Lethe and lunging towards the wall. “Oh my God –!”

“Wait,” Lethe hissed, grabbing him with both arms and bodily yanking him back. “Let them work.”

“What are you waiting for?!” Tubbo shouted, digging his fingernails deep into Lethe’s arms as he tried once more to twist away.

“We can’t use the sledgehammer again,” Siren said, casting around the room for any other tools. “It might hit him –”

“Start getting the rest of the drywall off,” the Blade instructed. With his bare hands, he began pulling out the bricks around the one Siren had extracted, tossing them carelessly to the ground. In a few minutes, between the two of them, a section of the wall about three feet wide and two feet high was opened up.

Then the Blade plunged his arms into the space between the walls and carefully pulled a limp figure with matted blond hair out by the shoulders. Siren reached in next to him and helped maneuver the legs through.

Tubbo heard a horrible sound – half-moan, half-wail – and distantly registered that it was coming from him.

Like the others, Tommy had been bound hand and foot before being placed inside the wall. His skin, hair, and clothes were speckled with dirt, smears of blood, and white stains that looked like paint or mortar. His face was oddly gray, and his eyes were closed. He looked dead, like the others.

The Blade gently lowered Tommy’s body to the carpet and knelt at his side. On his other side, Siren placed his fingers at the pulse point on Tommy’s neck, while the Blade pulled the gag out of the teenager’s mouth and turned his head to clear his airways.

“He’s alive,” Siren reported, his voice heavy with relief. Tubbo’s knees buckled; only Lethe’s iron grip kept him from sagging to the floor.

“Breathing’s a bit off,” the Blade said gruffly, gently tilting Tommy’s head to get a better look at his face. “And smells like he was drugged.”

“Let’s get him out of here,” Siren said. “We can get him checked out and treated back at headquarters. Will you carry –?”

The Blade nodded and stood, cradling Tommy as if he were made of glass.

“He’s really young,” Siren muttered, his lips tightening as he looked down at Tommy’s still face. “They both are.”

The Blade grimaced and nodded. He moved towards the front door with long strides, careful not to jostle the unconscious teenager in his arms. “Let’s get out of this hellhole.”

Tubbo trailed after them, shell-shocked, Lethe supporting him more than he was willing to admit.

Siren didn’t bother to shut the door behind them.

Chapter Text

Tommy’s head was pounding, and he felt nauseous.

He must be sick. God, he hated being sick. At least his sleeping bag nest was warm and comfortable, maybe even a bit softer than usual.

It wasn’t as warm as when he huddled next to Tubbo, though.

Tubbo. Tommy wanted Tubbo. He would feel better if he could just curl up next to his best friend. Was Tubbo here?

Tommy reached out blindly from under the covers and felt around; he found Tubbo’s hand and grabbed it, squeezing hard.

Tubbo’s hand felt … different. It felt bigger than usual, and while it squeezed back, it felt different than usual.

Tommy pried his eyes open and squinted.

This … wasn’t their bedroom. He was in a large, airy room with light blue walls and soft white drapes framing an open window. A soft breeze was drifting in, blowing the drapes around and carrying with it a faint scent of evergreens.

And … that wasn’t Tubbo.

The man sitting in a chair next to him had blond hair like Tubbo, but he wasn’t Tubbo. He was much older. An adult.

And he was no one Tommy had ever seen before.

That woke Tommy up properly, and he tensed, inhaling sharply as he blinked up at the man fuzzily, trying to clear his vision.

“It’s alright. Deep breaths. You’re safe, mate,” the man said with a calm, steady voice.

Tommy forced himself to focus and saw blue eyes, a shade lighter than his own. The few muscles that Tommy could move seized in shock. That voice, that intonation, those eyes – he knew them –

The Angel of Death, who without his corvid mask looked like any ordinary bloke on the street, was holding Tommy’s hand.

How was this even his life?

“You’re safe, Tommy,” the Angel repeated, looking down at him calmly. “You’re in a Syndicate safe house. Your friend Tubbo is here too, and he’s fine as well.”

Tommy choked on air. “How do you know my name –?!”

“It’s alright,” the Angel said again. “Don’t worry. Tubbo told us. He also told us that the two of you are Red Panther and Yellowjacket.”

Don’t worry?! Tommy wheezed. The Syndicate apparently was holding both Tommy and Tubbo captive and knew their real names – this actually sounded like a spectacular time to be worried –!

And someone else had told him that recently, hadn’t they?

But wait … how had this happened? The last thing Tommy remembered, he had been on his way back to Sunset Courts after slipping away from Lethe. No, wait, he had gotten there, and then – and then –

The wall. The wall. And a sing-song voice telling him “Don’t worry.”

Tommy wheezed again as the memory flooded back – watching the light disappear as the wall was closed up, brick by brick, unable to move or scream as he grappled for consciousness. He didn’t remember what had happened afterwards. Someone had obviously rescued him. Had it been the Syndicate?

“Breathe, Tommy. You’re safe. Focus on your breathing,” the Angel said, his voice slow and deliberate. “In for 4, hold for 7, then out for 8. In for 4, hold for 7, then out for 8 … good. Good, mate, you’re doing fine.”

“My name is Phil, by the way,” the Angel added, looking down at him, his icy blue eyes serious, but not threatening … and oddly kind.

Phil? Tommy gaped at him, the shock almost distracting him from his panic. The Angel of Death was seriously named Phil?

“You don’t need to worry,” the Angel – Phil – repeated, squeezing Tommy’s hand gently. “You’re safe here.”

For the next few minutes, Tommy struggled to get control of his breathing and Phil, sitting at his side, continued to quietly coach him.

“Are you going to let us go?” Tommy finally whispered, not quite sure he wanted to hear the answer, even as he spoke the words.

Phil hummed thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair without relinquishing his grip on Tommy’s hand.

“If you mean let you go back to being vigilantes again, living hand-to-mouth and working odd jobs, then no,” he said after a pause. “You – both of you – are much too young for this.”

“But we’ve been doing –”

“You’ve been doing a fine job,” Phil met his eyes squarely, and Tommy’s eyes widened in surprise. So … maybe Siren’s flippant words about him being the Syndicate’s ‘favorite vigilante’ weren’t just mockery?

“As I said, we've been keeping an eye on your activities,” Phil continued, tilting his head as he regarded Tommy. “And we respect your efforts. But it’s dangerous work, even for adults. You shouldn’t have to be in that position. You should be in school, both of you. You should be spending time with your friends and thinking about your futures.”

School? Futures? Despite himself, Tommy laughed, incredulous. They had run away from the miserable charity school-slash-juvenile prison years ago. Even if they had stayed, no good future would have been waiting for them at the end.

“That’s … never been in the cards for us, big man. Not ever.”

“It is now,” Phil said, looking down at Tommy with a serious expression.

“But why?” Tommy asked in consternation. Why would the Syndicate suddenly care about helping them?

“Why shouldn’t we help you?” Phil asked patiently, as if he had spoken the last bit aloud. “We might not be able to help every child, or fix everything that’s wrong in this city, but we can help you, here and now. We – I – want to,” he added, a note of amusement creeping into his tone.

He smiled slightly, a light Tommy had never noticed before warming his light blue eyes. “And as I said, we like you, mate. We respect your heart, and the work you’ve been doing. So why shouldn’t we help?”

“The real question,” he continued seriously, his gaze not wavering from Tommy’s wide eyes, “is if you’ll give us the little bit of trust we need to actually help you. If you let us, we’re more than happy to give you both a new home here with us. Or if not … we can get you set up safely in another city with new identities.”

Tommy gave Phil a blistering look and tried again to pull his hand loose, without success. Ignoring his inner Tubbo voice, which was beside itself at Tommy’s utter lack of self-preservation, he began to speak.

“So what, we have to leave our city, or else you want us to come work for the Syndicate, in exchange? A lot of the things that are wrong in Manberg are because of you to begin with,” Tommy said in a low, fierce voice. “Because of the Syndicate and the other Organizations. How can you help anyone?”

Phil hummed thoughtfully, still not releasing Tommy’s hand. “First – no, the offer is not contingent on you working with us. In fact, I would insist that you abstain from vigilante or Organizational activities, at least until you’re legal adults. And preferably longer, to be honest. If you decide you do want to work with us, several years down the road, we can discuss it.”

Tommy gaped at Phil, who continued without pause, “As for your second point, I do understand why you think that. But all I can tell you is that not all of the Organizations are alike. On the part of the Syndicate, we do have staunch principles of our own, even if they’re not fully aligned with yours.”

Tommy scoffed, and Phil raised an eyebrow at him, amused.

“Let me ask you two questions, then, mate. First, what would you like to see happen to the people responsible for Sunset Courts, when they’re apprehended?”

Tommy pressed his lips together, and then said, “That’s not fair, that’s different –”

“And second, would your answer change if you knew that development of the subdivision had been contracted by the Manberg City Council?”

Tommy’s eyes widened and he turned to meet Phil’s calm gaze.

“The City Council was involved?” he choked out. “How – why –?”

“The subdivision was a city government project, intended to expand Manberg’s property tax base. And the Council hired the builders because they were very, very cheap.”

“Are you saying someone from the Council had all those kids killed?” Tommy whispered, frozen. “But why?”

The knowledge of Sunset Courts, and what those children had suffered, now filled him with a new and previously unknown level of despair and horror. Because now, Tommy viscerally understood the panic and terror the victims had felt as they were sealed into the north walls.

Someone – apparently the Syndicate – had come to save Tommy. No one had been in time to save them.

Phil was silent for a moment, staring out the window. His thumb traced a long, soothing line up the side of Tommy’s thumb.

“It appears that the construction price was so cheap – a tiny fraction of the usual cost for building houses of that size and style – because they weren’t build traditionally,” Phil said finally. “There was magic involved. Specifically, a spell that would enable the house to be built without anywhere near the usual amount of materials or labor, by harassing the power of a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice?” Tommy echoed, feeling petrified with horror. “Do you mean –”

“Yes.”

Phil and Tommy stared at each other, sky blue eyes meeting ice blue.

“From what we’ve learned so far,” Phil continued, “the person who did the spell-work was not exactly … competent. Another reason, perhaps, for the low price. That was also why the walls started to crumble. Eventually, without continuous repair, all of the houses would have collapsed – except for the north wall, since that was where the ‘sacrifice’ was located and hence the focal point of the spell.”

Tommy swallowed back nausea.

“But that doesn’t mean the City Council did it, right? Could’ve been the builders’ own idea, innit?”

“Perhaps,” Phil said, the skepticism clear in his tone. “If one were to believe that the highly educated people in the building division and other Council offices who had to review and approve each phase of the work were oblivious as to why the quotes were so incredibly low, and why the finished dimensions of the houses didn’t match the schematics. And, of course, if one were to believe it was merely coincidental that certain city officials have become much, much wealthier since Sunset Courts was built, incommensurate with their salaries. The minuscule cost, of course, maximized the profits – and payoffs – for those involved.”

“We have some of the paper trails, with the rest to come. The corruption,” he added meditatively, “seems to have run deep.”

Tommy thought about this, and had to acknowledge that Phil was probably right. It was unlikely that the city’s involvement was purely coincidental. How could they not notice the –

“The kids,” Tommy said. “Do you know … who they were? And how many …” his voice trailed off.

“The ones we’ve identified so far – all were runaways and kidnapping victims, sadly,” Phil replied, his voice glacial as he stared out the window. The hand holding Tommy’s tightened minutely. “Demolition of all the other houses and retrieval of the remains is still in early stages. The subdivision is a massive, massive crime scene.”

Tommy was silent for a minute.

“Have you caught any of them yet?”

“One of them,” Phil said after a pause. He gave Tommy a sidelong glance. “The one who re-built the wall in the house the Blade, Siren, and Lethe found you in.”

Tommy’s eyes widened and his chest tightened as the memory of the second man and the Scrape. Thud. Click came rushing back to him.

“What – is he here? What did you do to him?” Tommy croaked.

Phil looked down at him and smiled slightly.

“You don’t need to be concerned about him ever again. And he told us enough, before the end. We’ll find the other one who hurt you – the one with the psycho clown mask – soon. And we’ll find the developer, the spell-caster, and everyone else who was involved, whether they were also actively committing these murders or enabling and profiting off of them.”

“Everyone,” he repeated, “at any stage and in any capacity.” His voice was chillingly matter-of-fact.

Phil’s tone was supremely confident, and Tommy admitted he had no trouble believing the Syndicate would accomplish their goal. It was only a matter of time, now.

“In fact,” Phil said after a moment, his tone deliberately lighter, with a tinge of amusement permeating it, “there is an opportunity for you to work with us on this effort in a very limited capacity, if you don’t mind that.”

Tommy stared at Phil’s face, searching for the trick, the lie. Phil returned his gaze patiently.

“Can I talk to Tubbo, before deciding? About … all of it?”

“Of course, mate,” Phil said easily. “He’s been anxiously waiting for you to wake up. I’ll go get him now, if you’d like.”

“Thank you,” Tommy whispered. Phil squeezed his hand gently before standing and moving to open the door.

---

A few weeks later, Tommy pulled his feet up onto the moth-eaten couch in his and Tubbo’s old flat. He pulled his new red knitted blanket more comfortably around himself and glanced quickly into the heavy shadows that hung in the corners of the dark room.

It was strange, being back here.

At least it probably wouldn’t be for long, though. Techno had told him to expect company shortly after midnight.

Tommy nestled his head into the soft fuzz of the blanket and tried to keep his breathing even and steady. He couldn’t fall asleep here on the couch though, not tonight.

Sure enough, a few minutes after midnight there was a creak, as someone put their full weight onto the rickety metal of the fire escape landing outside the kitchenette window.

A horribly familiar face peered through the glass, and Tommy froze.

He leapt backwards, cursing as his feet tangled in the blanket, and staggered back from the couch as the window slid open. The visitor squeezed easily through the gap and padded towards him softly, as if on cat-feet.

“Here you are, finally. I’ve been watching for so long – checking every night, waiting for you to come back,” the smiley-masked man purred. “I just want to talk to you.”

Despite himself, Tommy found himself tripping backwards towards the open bedroom door, stopping only when warm hands closed on his shoulders.

“That’s convenient, mate,” the Angel of Death’s cold voice rang out as he stepped from the shadows.

The smiley-masked man froze, his head swiveling to the source of the voice – and then to the opposite side, where the Blade’s red eyes burned like beacons in the darkness, and then behind him, where Nemesis stepped smoothly through the still-open window.

Wilbur’s hands squeezed Tommy’s shoulders reassuringly, and the tall man gently pushed Tommy behind him. Then Siren stepped forward to form the fourth point of the Syndicate diamond around the smiley-masked man, who stood oddly still, as if petrified.

“Because we’ve been wanting to speak with you as well, Dream.”