Chosen One

Electric Terrain

Patrick angrily matches up to the old man, grabbing his shirt by the collar. "You mean to say you sent us into Current Forest knowing there was an infected child that was never going to be saved? What if I didn't know that kid was infected? What if we got infected?"

"But you didn't." Dug responds sternly, making Patrick put him down, "I needed to see that you had knowledge of the virus, what it looked like, how to avoid catching it, and you succeeded. Not to mention, through that assignment, I can trust you to go through with tough situations that can go against morals. Sadly, it's half our job. It's not all glorious." Dug walks over to the hole in the tent, "Come, new associates, you need to register if you want to be part of Avail."

Although bitter about the situation, Patrick and I follow Dug down into the expansive tunnelling underneath the tent. As if we were in another town, the tunnelling reveals a wide-open space with workers travelling left and right in groups, like ordered chaos.

"So, if you plan on joining, you must think of a name for your dynamic duo."

"Xplorers, with a Capital X, no E." Patrick says confidently, holding up his thumb to me as if he had the team name covered since the start.

"Already taken." Dug chuckles.

Patrick's head turns quickly, "Surely not."

"It sure is. Remember, we have a lot of teams here, and we don't accept name duplicates. It's too confusing when recording who's done what assignment; this is unless the previous group that holds that name disbands."

"What about Electric terrain? " I ask, looking over to Patrick and hoping he'll like my idea.

"Yeah, Electric terrain, 'cause she's a ground mage, and I'm electric," Patrick announces as if the name is even better than his original idea.

"Sorry, that's taken too. Funnily enough, they are a ground and electric mage duo too."

"What about team Go-Getters? Then we can say, ' Let's go get 'em,' or maybe we can be called Last Resort."

"Both those names are taken, too. In fact, we just recruited a team before you that named themselves Last Resort. A brown-haired warrior mage and a green-hooded boy I believe he was a grass mage."

Moaning, Patrick responds, "Are there any names that aren't taken?"

"Of course there are, you just have to be more original."

We both stand and think for a moment, "What about Top Trumps?" I say, not overly confident in my idea.

"I like that, and it's not taken," Dug replies

I look over at Patrick, who isn't completely sold on the idea but moans, "Well, we're not going to think of another name, so we might as well."

"Then it's decided, from here on out, you must register as Top Trumps. This means you can now earn items and money every time you successfully complete an assignment."

---

Sitting at a table, we have lunch before we head out for our next assignment; a level 1 kidnapping. As we are finishing our meal I notice a girl with chocolate brown pigtails holding her index finger to her lips, sneaking up on her unsuspecting prey.

"Guess who!!!!" The girl screams, jumping on Patrick, and covering his eyes.

"Get off me!" Patrick yells

"Not until you guess my name, Pat." The girl giggles as Patrick struggles

"Lucy."

"COOOOORRECT." The girl happily exclaims, "I'm glad you still remember me." Lucy gets off Patrick and then sits in the spare seat at our table. "SOOooo what have you been doin' since I left your sorry arse all alone in that sad excuse of a home? It was more like a granny flat if you ask me. And hey, what happened to Lu, Pat? Or should I call you Patrick since we're on a full-name basis now? And also..."