IDV - A Coin's Two Sides - Freddy x Norton

1- Money Grabbers

Freddy had come to the manor for two reasons, and two reasons only. If not for those two reasons, he definitely would not have come. The manor was strange and dangerous, and also a huge waste of time... if not for those two reasons.
First of all, money. Freddy had a bit of debt thanks to a botched lawsuit, and the prize for winning this mysterious manor game must have been a handsome amount of money, right?
The second reason, however, was the promise of someone else being there... a butcher who killed someone dear to Freddy. Freddy wanted to see her gone. That person was Emily Dyer. Well, apparently that's what she goes by nowadays. A name he would have to come to hate just like the name Lydia Jones.

The manor made things difficult, however. The invitation was rather vague, so Freddy had no idea what he was getting himself into. Really, there was not enough room on a single piece of paper to explain what was going on inside of this manor.
Firstly, it was dangerous. Apparently the game they were meant to play was a deadly one. The date where the real game would finally begin was indefinite, which really added to the terror. While the "survivors", as the people playing this game were called, waited, they played practice games. These ones were not deadly, in fact they even added safety features onto the rocket chairs. It was all to prepare for the real game.
The danger scared Freddy, but at the same time, it was a grand opportunity. With lives at risk, one could easily get away with "murder". That's right; all he had to do was leave Emily in the hands of a dangerous hunter, and then she would be gone, easy as pie. There would be no blood on his own hands, which is always something you should shoot for. A perfect opportunity.
While waiting for the real game to start, Freddy had to act like a trustworthy guy. It was an easy enough task, but the wait time went on long enough that Freddy quickly became tired of being nice to Emily. He still does it, for he doesn't want to ruin his own plans, but it was annoying. Acting like you care about the well-being of the one person you came to destroy...
But there comes another strange thing about the manor. There were... so many people there. It was such an odd assortment of characters as well. One could even argue that they weren't even from the same times. Freddy knew based on the invitation that he would be with Emily for the real game, but for the practice games, teammates were random.
Hunters were also random. There's yet another strange thing about this manor. Strange monsters are present... some of the hunters are people, but others are monsters, and some are something in between. Things Freddy didn't think possible happened in this strange place.
All in all, the manor was very, very strange. And Freddy had no clue how long he would be there.

At least the large amount of survivors meant that Freddy didn't have to spend all of his time pretending to be nice to Emily. He could go and socialize with others... but nobody caught his interest in a good way. At least he wouldn't be expected to talk with Emily all the time since so many other people were present... but mostly Freddy was around Kreacher, which was unpleasant. They would constantly fight and that's it.

The problem with avoiding Kreacher was, aside from him being a gross eyesore that was hard to ignore, he and Freddy held something in common: a love for money.

One day in the manor, for reasons unknown to the survivors, a hunter was lugging around a sack of gold coins.
"This is ridiculous..." the Joker muttered to himself. "Why do I have to bring this over to them?"
Nobody really knows what that was about, but the important thing was, a coin ended up falling out of the bag. Only desperate money grabbers noticed, and had their eyes locked onto the shiny coin, patiently waiting for the hunter to leave.
Once the Joker had left the area, while other survivors started to calm and return to what they were doing, the money grabbers started to make their moves.
Freddy planned to casually walk over to the coin and pick it up like it was nothing, however he noticed the roach-like thief snickering to himself and making his way towards the coin rather swiftly. Not wanting the lowly thief to get the coin, Freddy quickly tripped Kreacher.
Of course, this didn't end very well, and the two ended up fighting... again. They do it an annoying amount of times.
After a bit of squabbling, Emma Woods carefully walked over to them. "Excuse me! Mr. Riley, I asked you to stop picking fights with Mr. Pierson, could you please stop..."
Freddy sighed and pushed Kreacher away. "I did not start it."
"You did actually," Emma said. "I watched you trip him!"
Freddy noticed Kreacher grinning and felt disgusted. "Fine, I will step away this time." The lawyer got up and started inconspicuously making his way to the coin, while Kreacher was stuck being offered help.
However, as Freddy approached the coin, he noticed it was no longer there. In its place, there stood someone Freddy had never spoken to before, but remembered seeing. The prospector, he thought. Indeed, that man was leaning against the wall casually, inspecting a gold coin.
There was no hope of Freddy obtaining it now without seeming desperate, so he surrendered and stood in his place. He would have left under normal circumstances, but he found himself staring at the prospector. The other times that Freddy and Kreacher raced to grab small valuables, was this guy also trying? Is this the first time he's succeeded? How did Freddy never notice him before?
Freddy tried his best to recall everything he knew about the prospector. His knowledge was, well, practically nothing. He's never seen him hang out with anyone, or even talk to someone briefly. He always seemed to be on his lonesome, with an eerie gloom hanging over him. His scar only made him more mysterious. Freddy heard so little about this man, in fact, that he didn't even know what his name was.
Eventually, the lawyer decided to walk away. He wasn't about to strike a conversation with the prospector. He had grabbed the coin fair and square, and trying to get it from him would be difficult without knowing much about him. Freddy wasn't a thief; he was a liar and a manipulator. It's a bit difficult to manipulate a coin out of the hands of a fellow money grabber that you know nothing about.

While this "encounter", if you could call it that, intrigued Freddy, he wasn't expecting to think much about it. However, a spark can lead to many more sparks, eventually creating a fire, or perhaps an explosion.