Shallomar drummed her fingers along her chin, blubbering her lips together out of boredom. Hailey stares at her, eyelids drooping in tiredness.

"When will Trace be back?" Shallomar finally whined, tapping her feet impatiently under her chair.

Hailey shrugged and sighed. "Who knows? Looks like Phantom's got him worked up over something again, and it doesn't look like a simple bug fix either, like last time."

Shallomar's bottom lip pouted. "I finally started liking him, too."

Hailey laughed. "Yeah, I guess it is too bad his Modifier upgraded again, huh?"

It was silent for a moment, and then Shallomar stood up abruptly, facing Hailey. "Wanna check the event board to see if there are any leftover missions?"

Hailey blinked at her for a few seconds, as if she didn't understand exactly what Shallomar was suggesting, and then, suddenly realising, she gasped. She jumped up in her chair and landed on her toes.

"You know that means we'll be risking our lives, right?" Hailey challenged, crossing her arms over her chest.

Shallomar nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know. That's exactly why I wanna go." She paused a moment, and Hailey just stare at her, at a loss for words. "Don't you think it's kind of lame that we just sit around, waiting for when Phantom requests our help? I mean, I think we should have some reign over our lives."

Hailey, sighing, dropped her arms to her sides. "Shallomar, you and I both know that we have zero reign as it is. We're lucky to even still have human thoughts."

Shallomar nodded shamefully. They were lucky to still have the behaviour of humans, minus the insane craving for killing people.

"But," Shallomar tried to convince Hailey, "I can't just sit around while one of our new comrades is being tested on and upgraded. It's depressing. So please, can we go on an event?"

Hailey's eyebrows creased, trying to figure out some sort of way to refuse Shallomar's request, but the harder she thought about it she started craving it as well.

"Dereck," Hailey summoned, still watching Shallomar. A grin crawled into her features.

The man appeared behind her and clutched her around her waist, supposedly catching her by surprise. Hailey flipped around, cackling, and allowed him to peck her forehead. Then, he backed away and nodded. Hailey smiled and looked back to Shallomar.

"You want to go right now?" Hailey asked, failing at hiding her excitement. The craving was taking over her.

That was the only side-effect of ignoring Phantom's constant badgering for updates; the unbearable craving for killing. Blood. Death. Screaming....

Hailey didn't let Shallomar answer, because she knew the answer, and raced forward to grab her sleeve. They both pressed their Modifiers in and their drab pajamas fizzled away to be replaced by their slick black cloaks.

Hailey bit her lip anxiously, hardly able to contain herself anymore.

They disappeared out of the room and Dereck waved them off, feeling slightly relieved that Hailey's carelessness meant they wouldn't have any missions today.

So he went to sleep again after making himself a good cup of coffee. It'd been awhile since he could sit down and calmly enjoy himself.

~~~~~

Hailey clutched Shallomar's arm, literally bouncing up and down. This wasn't like her, but she didn't care. Her insignia tickled her arm and she giggled like an insane person. Her Tool was itching to take over her. Not yet, not yet.

"How about this one?" Shallomar pointed at a nicely printed piece of paper. At the top of it the words Specific Task: Read Below For Details dialed across. Hailey smiled and nodded rapidly, not caring to read the paper.

"The triplets must be killed for countless murder attempts," Shallomar read aloud to herself thoughtfully, pressing her gloved finger to her lip. "That's interesting, don't you think, Hailey?"

"Hm?" Hailey mumbled, trying to focus. Her body was filling with tingly feelings all over. She could barely contain herself. Her eyes darted around every which way, trying to find where Shallomar was looking at.

"It says they have to be killed by poison, no exceptions," Shallomar laughed, surprised at the strange rule. "Maybe the three are really perceptive?"

Hailey's eyes rolled around, her nostrils flaring. She looked insane.

Shallomar gave her a look of disapproval and gave her a little tap on the cheek to try to get her back to her senses. Hailey shot straight up like some sort of shock activated her limbs. She shook her head slightly and sighed, slightly disappointed that she couldn't unleash her nature.

"Ready to go?" Shallomar urged, hovering her finger over the barcode on the event paper. Hailey nodded subtly and Shallomar pressed her finger to the code, sliding it across like a credit card.

The world almost immediately crumbled around them, and the scenery slowly fell into place.

Scary things, non-mission oriented events... They were missions rejected by different levels of assassins from different groups, meant for different classes of assassins. Could Hailey and Shallomar really pull this one off?

When the street signs and buildings of New York bled into place around them, Hailey groaned. The people and cars appeared, too, and everything was suddenly noisy. A dangerous place to be; in public. Luckily, it was getting dark outside.

In a millisecond, Hailey and Shallomar had switched into Mayday Parade fan t-shirts and denim skinnies. They had to blend in, and that was the scariest thing an assassin could ever risk. Their insignias would look like tattoos, but any other assassin-in-disguise would recognise it right away.

A group of teenage boys shuffled past the two, whistling like a bunch of mad dogs. Shallomar ignored them and Hailey rolled her eyes. The careless idiots would soon be taken care of. Hailey tried to keep focus on finding the three boys on their event contract.

"My Modifier is telling me they're somewhere near Central Park. Want to teleport there now?" Shallomar laughed, dodging a hurrying business man. Papers slipped out of his briefcase, but he left them behind.

"Sure," Hailey yawned, stretching her hands into the air. Her shoulder popped and her elbows ached, but it felt amazing to be so free. She was glad Shallomar suggested the event. In fact, why didn't they take advantage of the moment? "No, wait," Hailey snatched the event paper from her and stuffed it into her Mayday Parade satchel. Shallomar gave her a confused stare. "Why don't we go out for ice cream first?"

"You're the captain of WP7," Shallomar stuttered, unsure of what she should say, because she was indeed shocked at Hailey's sudden decision. "So we're supposed to follow your orders, but-"

Hailey laughed. "We can finish the job as soon as we finish with the ice cream."

"Promise?" Shallomar asked hesitantly. What if someone was watching them?

Hailey smiled. "Of course."

Shallomar gave a nod of consent and Hailey laughed. She had always wanted to taste ice cream for some reason, but was never able to because of Phantom's restrictions. Most thought her desire was silly, but she unhealthily craved it.

Hailey's Modifier directed her to the ColdStone Creamery on 42nd street. As soon as they walked in, the scent of warm waffles wafted into their noses. Shallomar and Hailey both immediately fell in love with the smell and each ordered a caramel fudge cone.

They topped off the ice cream before they could savour it, and Hailey was content. Shallomar linked arms with her and they skipped along the sidewalk, merrily high on sugar. What a wonderful new feeling they were experiencing!

After half an hour of skipping around, Shallomar finally brought up the mission again. Hailey agreed they had to complete it, and they located where the three were again; still lingering around Central Park.

Hailey pulled out the event sheet and gasped before stuffing it back into her satchel. "Shallomar, we should hurry this up, or we'll be automatically sent back to Phantom and receive our punishment for incompletion of an event..."

Shallomar nodded spastically and they quickly teleported to Central Park.

Sure enough, three young identical teenage boys were in Central Park, sitting in a circle around a pile of notebooks. One of them held one, jotting down notes of their discussion.

Hailey was the first to approach their group. "Hey guys, do you wanna have a little fun?" He lips curled into a devious smile and she popped her hip out to the side, flipping her hair dramatically over her shoulder.

The first boy, face covered in freckles, turned around, looking up at her. His face turned tomato-red and he nodded shyly.

Shallomar stepped up next, biting her lip. "Um, Hailey, what're you doing?"

Hailey didn't respond, but the other two boys stood up immediately, evil intentions readable on their lips. Hailey hid her grimace.

It was only a matter of seconds before Shallomar had pinned a guy down. Masterly, she pressed her hand to the boy's arm. Her insignia lit up, poisonous, beautiful butterflies, and the redness drained quickly in the boy's arm. His body tensed and the sadistic smile on his face warped. Death was quick.

Meanwhile, Hailey poisoned the other two with a special Tool maneuver.

They all lay dead, unmoving, on the dewy grass. The job was done, and it was actually quite interesting. An excited smile spread across Hailey's face, and a frightened one across Shallomar's but they were both equally filled with adrenaline.

They quickly fled the scene, just before the Central Park Rangers could smite them, and when they reached a safe area where they couldn't be seen, they gave each other a celebratory high-five.

Quickly changing into their cloaks, they teleported back to Phantom.

They appeared before the event board, happy they completed the task. The event paper disappeared, alerting them that they had correctly achieved the task.

Dereck, having waited for their return, wrapped his arms around Hailey from behind and she squealed, still not recovered from her experience.

Dereck's face turned dark in an instant. "Hailey, what task did you guys take?"

She smiled dimly at him. "We had to kill three murderers. It was quite entertaining." Her eyes lit up and sparkled. Dereck sighed, not wanting to ruin her excitement, and linked arms with her. Shallomar linked with his other arm.

"Before we teleport back to the WP7 dorm, I should probably tell you guys something," Dereck admitted hesitantly.

Hailey tilted her head to the side, and Shallomar mirrored her. They were both interested.

Sighing, Dereck pressed in his Modifier. All three of them floated up from the ground, hovering is empty space. Only when they landed in the dorm did Hailey's and Shallomar's faces reveal horror itself. Only then did Dereck point out the obvious.

"Trace is back from his update."