AH collections

Then there were two

Jeremwood
Word count: 4167
Chapters: 1

Before they were The Vagabond and Rimmy Tim, they were the Battle Buddies. Before they were part of the Fake AH Crew, they were part of a top-secret military operation in which they were Associates of Assault, hired – for the most part – to take out any threats to the nation. They did the occasional bomb defusal, but they were usually hired for their stealth and ability to take down entire organisations in the span of a single night. Of course, they weren't exactly as stealthy as they made their superiors believe, but they never left anyone alive to tell them any different, so there was really no harm in a little exaggeration.

They were the perfect team, Agents Ryan Haywood and Jeremy Dooley. One of the highest-ranking teams in the whole agency, not that you'd be able to tell with the kind of work they were given near the end. Maybe their superiors saw something coming, saw how bloodthirsty they were becoming. Maybe they were trying to give them a break, give them time to cool down, detach themselves from their work. Maybe they thought all the work was catching up to them, that they were developing some form of PTSD. The project had had their fair share of agents who needed to drop out due to mental health reasons, after all, despite only having agents in active duty for half a decade. It was gruelling and grisly work.

Unfortunately for them, that was not the case for the Battle Buddies, and weaning them out of active duty, making them run more and more simulations and bomb defusal missions rather than what they were trained – no, made – for was their downfall.

They never saw it coming.

The Battle Buddies had been talking about it, planning it, for months, since they had first started getting pulled from active missions. There was the fact that the agency was corrupt, making them murder people for reasons that went against their (admittedly skewed) moral compasses. That wasn't all there was to it, though. In truth, they had both always been bloodthirsty, though it never really came to light until they joined the agency. When the agency started restricting them, keeping them on a short leash, well, the Battle Buddies didn't react well to that, especially not with their conflicting ideologies.

Jeremy was, surprisingly, the one to bring up the idea. Ryan was, of course, the one to plan it out. They didn't need to prepare, not really, because they knew they would have the element of surprise, and they knew they had the training to pull it off.

It was surprisingly easy.

The hard part was overriding the alarms, but the agency never expected this from their own men, so it was fairly easy to get into the security room in order to tamper with the alarm system. All it took was Jeremy talking up the security guards and techs while Ryan slipped into the background, working quickly and quietly.

They had access to the agency's main weapons supply, so that was the easiest part. It was as simple as swiping their cards and grabbing whatever weapons they wanted. Ryan had picked out the most effective weapons for each of them weeks in advance, so it didn't take long for them to gather what they needed and get out.

They started with those in the lower ranks. Techs and trainees were the first to go. Low ranking teams and security guards were next. The mid ranking teams came after that, and while they proved to be some difficulty to get through, it wasn't particularly hard. Next were the higher-ranking teams, those on the same level as the Battle Buddies. They had had time to figure out what was going on and prepare by that point, so they proved to be much more difficult than the others, but were ultimately no match for the Battle Buddies.

By the time the Battle Buddies made it to their superiors, both had obtained some injuries. Both had taken gunshots to their torso, but their body armor was able to save them from any serious damage. Ryan had a gash on his forehead, a broken nose, and a graze from a bullet on his thigh. Jeremy had a broken hand and a bullet imbedded his upper arm – luckily both injuries were on the same side, so he still had one perfectly functional arm, and that was all he needed.