Work Text:
No matter how well made her clothes were, no better cloak existed than that of the night.
Pearl ducked behind a dumpster, wrinkling her nose at the putrid stench wafting from the half-open lid. This part of Empires City always smelled somewhat questionable and suspiciously like death, but this particular dumpster was worse than normal. Pearl covered her nose with her dark green cloak, breathing in the soft floral scent of her detergent to prevent herself from gagging and blowing her cover as heavy boots thundered past.
She waited a moment longer, counting her breaths before raising her hand, directing a thick, sturdy vine up the wall of what she believed to be a restaurant. The familiar pull of her magic never left her as she clambered up the vine, using the thick, waxy leaves as footholds until she landed in a crouch on the rooftop, stilling for a moment with her hand on her scythe to ensure she hadn’t been spotted. But no shouts or alarms pierced the still night air. One quick slice behind her, and the vine fell back to the cobblestones of the darkened alleyway.
And there, just visible over the tangle of run-down, heavily graffitied buildings, stood the four dark chimneys she was looking for, all spewing disgusting red-tinged smoke into the air. And that’s where she should find her target.
Because the reign of terror of the massive, pervasive crime syndicate known as the Nether had gone on for far too long. Blackmail, extortion, kidnappings and murders all linked to them, with nothing able to be done when they had the entire government in the palm of their hands. Which is why the Helianthian Assassins had sent her, their best assassin, to eliminate the head of the organisation, known simply as The Demon.
And Pearl was more than up to the task, creeping across the rooftops out of reach of the few streetlights that remained in this part of town. Concealed by darkness and her cloak, none of The Demon’s goons patrolling the streets below had any idea what was coming for their boss.
Pearl strung another vine over the street, bridging the gap over to her target. None of the goons below bothered to look up at the stark green vine sticking out like a sore thumb in this faded grey and red landscape, but she still waited for them to pass underneath before crossing over her homemade tightrope. She just left it behind this time. It would be way too obvious if she let it fall over the street, and her magic ensured the vine would just throw anyone who wasn’t her off anyway.
Now if her intel was correct, there should be a door up here somewhere that she could use to get inside, and The Demon should be in the main warehouse area. One would think that with the amount of reach and power the Nether had, they would use some of their budget to build their boss an actual office. Maybe they just preferred to stay in the warehouse to terrify their employees into doing their bidding.
But she was here to kill The Demon, not question their business practices. She found the door she was looking for, only for it to swing open on its own, with the shattered remains of the lock strewn across the top concrete steps.
Strange.
One of her smaller golden scythes found its way into her hand, the familiar surface of the leather grip melded perfectly to the shape of her hand after so many years. She kept it concealed in her cloak as she crept down the stairs, with the soft soles of her shoes muffling any trace of her footsteps. Fluorescent lights dimly flickered over the hallway, casting a cool blue-green glow over the bodies strewn about, all sporting similar stab wounds in their backs while pools of blood mingled with puddles of water.
Someone else was here before her.
A faint muffled shriek came from further down the hall. Pearl left the bodies behind, rounding the corner and abruptly raising her scythe to block the dagger swinging for her face. The metals gave an earsplitting clang when they met, before fading into silence and leaving only her heart pounding in her ears. She met frosty blue eyes glaring at her from above blue cloth coating the bottom half of the assassin’s face, with a thin strip of white fabric covering the skin around his eyes.
“Well, well, well. The Blade of Aeor,” Pearl smiled from underneath her golden mask. She knew those icy blue eyes, belonging to her biggest rival; the hired assassin of Rivendell Industries. A company sketchy enough to warrant having a hired assassin on hand, but nowhere near as corrupt as the Nether was. You give her the choice between working for Rivendell and working for the Nether, and she’d choose Rivendell any day.
“Gilded Reaper,” Aeor replied, his eyes hardening as he lowered his dagger and stepped back. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Indeed, what a crazy coincidence,” Pearl nodded. “Well, you’re not my target tonight, so I’ll be on my way now. Cheers!” She waggled her fingers at Aeor, leaving him behind and striding off down the hall without glancing back. Of course, she kept her senses tuned in case he tried to stab her in the back, but he made no move to do so.
So Pearl pushed him free from her mind. She had a job to do, and wasn’t going to let the annoying ice wielding assassin get in her way. Prying open an air vent and manipulating the magic in her mask to filter out the toxins in the air, she slipped inside and sealed the grate behind her, following it down and down until voices drifted up from below.
“-shipment is almost ready?”
A rough, garbled voice. The same voice she had heard thousands of times on hacked billboards, TV channels, and radio stations. The voice of The Demon.
Pearl carefully drew up more vines, letting them snake through the slats in the grate to unscrew the panel. She closed her eyes, focusing and tuning out the rest of the conversation just to make sure she wouldn’t do something silly like drop the grate. She would never. But regardless, she kept her eyes closed until the screws gave a soft click and she swung the grate out, allowing herself to perch in the rafters of a sprawling warehouse. Packed with crates, forklifts and vats of ominous red liquid giving off a faint crimson glow, Pearl scanned the scattered workers giving one group a wide berth. Because strolling amongst the products, with their back perfectly straight, a black suit with a white capelet, and their face concealed by a black helmet with dark antlers jutting out, was The Demon.
And surrounded by two of their goons of course. But Pearl wasn’t concerned about those at all. That helmet prevented her from getting a clean, easy shot against The Demon’s head or neck, which meant she’d need to go through their back or chest. Not her preferred way of getting a kill, but a job was a job and The Demon had to die.
Until, a flicker of movement passed through her peripheral vision. Pearl narrowed her eyes at the bloody Blade of Aeor dropping down from an ice-coated ventilation shaft onto the rafter just behind her, his eyes fixated on The Demon below.
Lovely. Just lovely. Now Aeor had the same target as her too.
“Hey! Aeor!” She hissed across the gap. Aeor jerked his head up to glare at her. “This is my kill!”
“Well you haven’t gotten to it yet. I say it's still fair game.”
“Get out of here!”
“Nah, I think I’m good. I’m being paid a lot for this kill, so I think I’ll be taking it once The Demon comes this way.”
“You don’t think I’m getting paid for this?”
“Should’ve been faster,” Aeor shrugged, leaping across to the same rafter as her with a faint ring of ice against metal. Pearl grit her teeth, making one more leap closer to The Demon. “And if we’re deciding who gets the kill like children, then technically it should be mine since I got here first.”
Pearl rolled her eyes. “Like your measly little dagger will get through that helmet.”
“And your scythe will? Step aside, Reaper. I got this one.”
A throat cleared from below them. Pearl leaned forward, wincing at The Demon staring up at them, a faint hint of amusement visible through the magenta visor coating their eyes. And of course, the two goons on either side, pointing crackling Trident-117 model energy guns at both her and Aeor.
So that’s what happened to those blueprints stolen from Grimlands Weapons Inc..
“Am I… interrupting something, perhaps?” The Demon asked, looking between them both.
Oops.
“Noooo, not at all,” Aeor backpedalled, hastily shoving his dagger out of sight. “We’re just… checking out the merchandise! This is a surprise safety inspection! Just making sure it adheres to all the safety protocols! For… storage purposes. Don’t want anything to spill and leave you with a workplace injury to have to do paperwork for!”
Pearl suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, instead nodding along as convincingly as she could. “No one likes doing paperwork, after all! So we’re here to do some lovely paperwork and make sure you have less paperwork to do! You’re probably a busy guy after all, hey?”
“Exactly!” Aeor agreed.
The Demon chuckled, turning their back to them and raising a hand to their two henchmen. “Kill them.”
Pearl glared at Aeor. He shrugged. “Well. Worth a try.”
And he swung down off the rafter. Ice crawled over one goon’s feet, and their shot went right over Aeor’s head. Energy exploded over the tin roof with a sickening crackle. Pearl turned her attention to the other goon, using a vine to yank the gun right out of their hands and sending it spinning right behind a vat of red goo. A brief moment of confusion from the henchman, and Pearl dropped right on top of him while her scythe sliced through the exposed skin at his throat.
Both goons fell to the ground with a thud. Aeor yanked his dagger out of their back and levelled the blade back at The Demon, who had stopped in place and was regarding them both without a hint of fear or unease.
“Safety inspection,” they scoffed. “Neither of you were ever very good at coming up with lies on the spot. It was always me that had to explain why we missed class or why the toilet paper was missing.”
“I’m sorry?” Aeor incredulously asked. “What do you mean?”
“After all this time, you don’t even recognise me? I’m ashamed of you, brother, ” The Demon spat, clicking the visor of their mask away and pulling it off their head. And revealing a face that Pearl hadn’t seen in over a decade, with purple eyes and long magenta hair tied back out of their face. A face that she thought was dead.
“ Xornoth? ” Aeor sputtered. “But- but how?! I thought you were dead!”
“Hello Scott. Hello Pearl. Long time no see,” Xornoth smirked. “Welcome to my empire.”
Pearl’s blood ran cold, meeting Aeor’s - no - Scott’s eyes. She could’ve sworn they had changed colour since high school, a much icier blue than before now that his ice powers had clearly grown from when they had first manifested as a teenager. How excited he had been, and how much he had wished to show his brother, who had disappeared the year prior and had never been found.
Of course, now she saw it. The wisps of cyan hair hidden under his hood. How he had talked about following in his parents’ footsteps at Rivendell Industries once he graduated. The way he moved and spoke.
Then they had lost contact after high school, and Pearl had lost track of what became of Scott in the decade since.
But still- the fact that she didn’t even recognise him anymore-
“Pearl?” Scott whispered. “Is it really you?”
“Scott-” Pearl laughed. “It is. It is me!”
“Oh my god.” He shook his head. “Nice mask! I didn’t even recognise you!”
“Your eyes changed colour,” Pearl commented.
“Yeah,” Scott ran a hand over his arm. “Happened a few years ago. My ice magic kept getting stronger and I uh- lost control of it for a while and accidentally hurt a friend- and that’s when they changed.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” Pearl whispered.
“Well, this is a heartwarming reunion,” Xornoth quipped. “I hate to cut it short. But you two now know my plans. And we can’t have that. But of course, both of you would know all about that, being assassins and all.”
The light in Scott’s eyes was immediately extinguished as he turned back to his brother. “What happened to you? Why are you doing this? You could’ve come back home-”
“Our parents thought I was cursed!” Xornoth spat. “You were always the perfect golden child, protégé of Aeor, destined to become the next big important CEO. While I was always shoved into the shadows!” They changed their voice, mimicking the tones of their parents. “‘Oh, Xornoth, leave the business courses to your brother, he’s so much better at them.’ ‘Oh Xornoth, why don’t you try being a delivery driver for Rivendell? You’ll make a big difference that way! Or maybe you can work in the labs! Not as a scientist or a mage, but maybe you could help out in other ways.’”
“Did they really say that to you?” Scott strained. “I had- I had no idea-”
“Of course you didn’t. Our parents made sure of that. They didn’t care when you hadn’t manifested your magic by age fifteen, but when my magic hadn’t manifested by then, I was a failure that wouldn’t amount to anything. I knew I wasn’t wanted, so I left.”
Pearl just watched the two brothers, her heart sinking in her chest. Scott and Xornoth’s parents had always been so kind to her, always sending her home with baking and career advice. She had no idea any of this was happening the whole time. Scott and Xornoth had always seemed so… close.
“Xornoth…” Scott stretched a hand out.
“No!” Xornoth snapped. “It was my own decision to leave and I’m not coming back. I know you’re both here to kill me, but I hope you know I was never going to make it easy for you.”
“We can talk about this!” Scott protested.
“It’s too late for that.” Xornoth shook their head, and pulled their hands out from behind their back. “So come and get me.”
Scott stood frozen in place, his hand shaking around his dagger. So Pearl took her opportunity and manifested a vine to wrap around Xornoth’s ankles. They controlled all the prisons in the city, but maybe… just maybe they could capture them instead just this once instead. There had to be someplace they could be held and pulled away from this life of crime.
But Xornoth just smirked, their fingertips lighting up with the orange glow of fire magic. Pearl gasped as her vine withered into ash, filling the air with acrid smoke.
“You have fire magic,” she breathed. “Since when?”
“Since I was eighteen. Two years after I left!” Fire swirled around them as Scott snapped out his daze, his hands glowing bright with pale blue ice magic. But he shot her a panicked look, which she returned. Xornoth easily countered both of them.
This wasn’t good.
“What, scared?” Xornoth gave them both a sinister grin. “I’ve never known you two to be scared of a little fire. What happened to the days where we’d run into the flames together? Just the three of us, skipping class and pulling pranks and having fun?”
“Why become a crime lord then?” Pearl asked. “What we did in high school? It was always for fun! This isn’t!”
“Power. Spite. Proof.” They shrugged. “I have my reasons. But life’s been great since The Dragon was killed a while back.”
“You were behind that?!” Scott yelled. Pearl remembered the old mayor of Empires City, a good older woman who earned herself the nickname because of her policies fiercely protecting the vulnerable populations of the city. Then she was assassinated by an unknown killer, who vanished into the night and was never caught.
Her successor undid much of what she did. And now that Pearl considered it, that was when the Nether went from a nuisance to an actual, terrifying threat.
Another smirk. “May have pulled a few strings. Made sure the money made it to the right hands for things to get done. But nothing personal. It’s just business.”
“Just business,” Scott muttered. His grip tightened around his dagger until his knuckles went white. “I missed you, Xornoth. I loved you. Grieved for you. But this isn’t you anymore.”
Scott drew in a sharp inhale and lunged forward. His dagger met Xornoth’s in with a sharp clang. Ducking underneath the roar of fire, he directed a stream of ice at them, which melted immediately to steam in the heat.
Pearl summoned a vine at the ready, waiting for opening in the deadly arc of brothers’ blades.
Fire and ice.
She loosed the vine, directing it to wrap around Xornoth’s wrists. They snarled and burnt them to a crisp, spinning out of the way of Scott’s strike. And throwing a hard punch right into Scott’s stomach. The impact sent him rolling away until he came to a stop at the base of a vat of red goo, coughing and gasping for breath. Tears pooled in his eyes as he looked up.
Xornoth struck out with a fire-coated dagger towards their brother. Pearl moved automatically, gritting her teeth at the heat flaring up around her mask when she caught the blade on her scythe. She kicked Xornoth back. Pressed her attack. Her cloak snapped around her ankles, adrenaline flooding her veins and keeping her reflexes sharp and her steps sure.
“You’ve gotten a lot better at this,” Xornoth commented, grinning down at her while his dagger screeched along the golden metal of her scythe. Their firelight danced along the deadly sharpened edges of both blades, catching on the vicious glint in their eye.
“I’ve been practising,” Pearl smiled back. Her free hand pulled her other scythe free from her waist, slashing forward. Xornoth let out a howl of fury when it cut them across their cheek, leaving a stream of red across their skin matching the goo in the vats.
Their eyes filled with fury, and Xornoth’s attacks gained a fire she had never seen in them before. Her forearm stung as she blocked their first punch. And a second. Every attack pushed her back further and further. Closer to the red. Red ate at the edges of her vision, brought on by the glow from the vats. Closer and closer to her back with every strike. The dagger clanged against her scythe.
But she couldn’t land a hit. Even without sentimentality stilling her hand, Xornoth did too good of a job guarding their neck and chest.
Until they kicked her in the knee. A sharp wave of pain ripped through her leg as she fell with a cry, gritting her teeth against the pain as she glared up at Xornoth. Still wearing that infuriating smirk and they always had when they had bested her in a sparring match. “You cheater!” She spat.
Xornoth chuckled, spinning their dagger once in their hand. “It’s just business, Pearl. You make a good assassin though. I’ve heard so much about the fabled Gilded Reaper. I could give you a better job working for me. How much were they paying you to kill me? Whatever it was, I’ll double it.”
Double it? That was money she could go far with. She could finally get a bigger apartment. Or maybe she could move out to the country and become a farmer like she had always wanted.
The temperature plummeted around her.
Xornoth shook off the cloud of snow from Scott, turning back to him with a snarl. Pearl suppressed a grin, summoning a vine to slam into Xornoth’s stomach, forcing them back while they doubled over in a coughing fit.
“We need a better plan,” Scott panted, crouching down next to her and waving a hand over her knee. The chill from a thin layer of ice chilled her skin, easing the throbbing pain to a manageable level immediately. “This isn’t working. And fire counters both of us.”
“Burns my plants and melts your ice,” Pearl murmured, her gaze falling back on the flames flickering around Xornoth’s hands. Then it clicked. “Water from your melting ice will extinguish the fire!”
Scott jerked his head towards her. “Pearl, have I ever mentioned you’re a genius?”
“Why no, you haven’t!” Pearl grinned. “But I’d love to hear it more!”
Scott rolled his eyes. “I take it back. Cover me. You know what to do.”
Her knee felt better already, but Pearl stayed sitting anyway while Scott met Xornoth in battle. Dagger to dagger. A light tug from her magic, and vines snaked around Xornoth’s ankles. They caught fire immediately, but Scott was on it. Leaping back from Xornoth’s dagger singing an arc through the air, a localised cloud of sleet coalesced around the flaming vine.
The flames choked and died in a hiss of steam. Xornoth darted a glance back at their feet, their gaze hardening as they set the vine on fire again. A wave from Scott’s hand, and the fire went out. Pearl focused, flooding life and energy into the vine to repair the damage while calling forth another to bind their wrists.
“Come on!” They yelled, struggling against the vines and continuously setting them on fire while Scott extinguished each one. Pearl concentrated, bringing Xornoth down to their knees at Scott’s feet. They snarled and hurled threats and insults, staring back up at their brother with undisguised hate.
Scott didn’t move. Or speak. Pearl couldn’t see his eyes, but if the way his hand shook around his dagger was any indication, he was hesitating. Something incredibly dangerous for an assassin to do.
“What are you waiting for?” Xornoth snapped. “You’ve got me. Finish your job!”
With a quick glance back at Pearl, Scott turned back to his brother. “No. I’m taking you out of here. You’re going to give up on this whole crime lord thing and you’re going to come and live with me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Xornoth rolled their eyes. “I knew you were soft, but this is a whole new low. Come on. You know I’ll burn your house down and escape the first chance I get right?”
“Too bad!” Scott chirped, grabbing Xornoth by the back of the neck and hauling them up. Pearl manipulated the vines to accommodate. “The building is concrete so you’re going to have one hell of a time setting it on fire.”
Pearl struggled to her feet. Her knee felt better after being iced, and she smiled up at Xornoth’s glare. “I like this plan. We get you back and you stop being the whole evil demonic crime lord guy that you’re really not.”
Scott nodded. “Too bad we don’t normally leave our targets alive, because having some handcuffs or something like that would be really convenient right about now.”
“I’ll keep the vines up,” Pearl promised, folding her arms across her chest. “Just make sure you do your part and put the fires out.”
A tendril of smoke curled up from Xornoth’s wrist before it extinguished with a hiss. Scott winked at her. “For all intents and purposes, The Demon died here tonight. But I promise you one thing, Xornoth. I’ll protect you from our parents. They'll never know about you.” He flicked his gaze over to Pearl, sarcastic amusement flickering in his eyes. “You just have to fake your death again, which should be no problem for you at all.”
“You can’t be serious,” Xornoth complained.
“Oh I’m perfectly serious,” Scott said sweetly. “And Pearl, why don’t we each take our rewards from this assassination and move out to the country? Like you’ve always wanted. I think I might try my hand at farming too. And we should catch up since we apparently ended up choosing the same career path after all.”
Pearl laughed. “Lovely! And yes, I haven’t seen you in forever! How about a cup of coffee after we drop The Demon in your basement?”
“Do I get a say in this at all?” Xornoth protested. The vines caught on fire again. Scott put them out.
“Nope!” They both cheerfully said in unison.