"I'm a bit relieved, honestly."

"You didn't actually think 3 people would die 3 days in a row, right?" Mumbo replied. "That'd be too much of a coincidence, it wouldn't even be a coincidence anymore."

Grian, along with Iskall and Mumbo, were walking in the halls of the building. "Also, how's Hypno?" Grian asked. "He took a day off today, right? Is he feeling better?"

"From what I've heard from Stress, I think he's gotten worse over the course of yesterday, unsurprisingly." Iskall sighed. "He said that he'll be back in more or less a week."

"Still in grief about xB's death, huh?" Mumbo said. "It's only natural, with how close they were... It'll probably take him more than a week to recover, poor guy."

Grian nodded in sympathy, before remembering something he wanted to say. "Oh, right, on the topic of Hypno-"

"Tango- please- wait!"

The three were stunned as Tango ran across the hall in front of them, fleeing from the room he just ran out of. He disappeared into the halls, and a moment later, Impulse emerged from the same room, and ran after the other.

"...Wasn't that Impulse, the head of the marketing division, and Tango?" Iskall finally said. "What are people from the Marketing division doing here, on the other side of the building?"

"I have no idea, and they seemed like they were chasing each other." Mumbo replied. "Is there something going on? Also, was it just me, or did Impulse's right arm had bandages?"

Grian looked down the hall where both guys just disappeared into, he already had a bad feeling about this.

+---+---+

BANG!

The shot was fired. A few moments later, something cracked.

The bullet missed, hitting the light the only light in the alleyway, making the whole place pitch black.

Impulse flinched, opening his eyes realizing that it missed. He could no longer see anything, the only light in the alleyway being shattered. He didn't know what happened, but he did what his instinct immediately told him to do:

Run.

And so he did. He quickly bolted around and started running as fast as he could. He didn't know where he was going as the whole place was pitch black, but still, he ran.

He froze slightly when he heard noises coming from behind him, but he immediately kept running.

BANG!

Pain.

That was the first thing he felt.

Another gunshot went out, and immediately after, he felt something pierce through the skin of his arm. He fell to the ground.

He could feel the sharp pain in his shoulder, as well as the blood slowly but surely draining out of it. His vision began to blur.

He slowly closed his eyes, but then heard a few footsteps, a whimper,

And a familiar voice.

"...I... I can't do this- I'm sorry-"

"Impulse? Mate, are you alright?"

"Oh- uh-" Impulse snapped out of his thoughts to see Zedaph glancing a worried look towards him. "I'm fine, I was just thinking about somethi- ow!" He was obviously not fine as he hit his arm on accident, which multiplied the worried look given by Zedaph.

"Don't move your arm too much, take a rest-" Zedaph advised, getting up to take a closer look at the bandaged arm. "Honestly, why did you even come to work today? You should've just taken a day off, with an arm this badly injured!"

"I'm fine, really-" Impulse flinched in pain as he slowly set his arm on the table.

Zedaph sighed in defeat, knowing he couldn't convince the other. "On a different topic, you said an assassin came for you, and that's how you got this wound, right?"

Impulse slightly froze at the topic change. "...yeah, that's right. One of the slightly popular ones too..." He answered, trying not to give out too much info about it. "I think he was called the 'Red Bullet'."

"Right- and then, they suddenly just let you go with just this wound?"

"Well- they might have thought I'll just die of blood loss-"

"But I read this article about 'Red Bullet' this morning," Zedaph said, getting his phone out and opening something, "And it says that when he appears, he usually always makes an appearance, and that he's usually really careful to not let his targets live."

Impulse went silent, he didn't expect him to research about it, and now regrets telling him the full story, apart from the part where he might have connected the dots and figured out who went for his life. "...So, what are you suggesting?"

"The most likely scenario is that he, for some reason, let you live on purpose." Zedaph correctly guessed.

"But- why would a high paying hitmen just let me live?"

"It doesn't make much sense, but it's the most likely scenario," Zedaph sighed. "I wonder what Tango thinks about this- oh, speaking of Tango... is it just me or does it seem like he's avoiding us on purpose today?"

Impulse dreaded the time when Tango's name would be brought up. "...I mean, yeah, the last time I saw him was at the right side of the building less than an hour ago, and he kept running away from me."

"Should we go look for him?" Zedaph suggested. "There must be a reason why he's avoiding us. I tried calling him earlier and he didn't pick up."

"...Maybe we should." Impulse sighed. As much as he didn't want to throw Tango under the bus, he wanted to talk to him about it.

"Okay then, let's try splitting up to find him easier. I'll search the lower part of the right side, you search the upper, right?"

"Alright, I'll tell you if I run into him." Impulse nodded.

They split up to look for Tango on the right side of the Aque Corp building. The building was massive, and had two main sides: the right and left. It also had a whole lot of floors, so just trying to search for someone is going to be difficult. Even worse, it was break time, so there were a lot of employees wandering in the halls, making it not so easy to see every corner of the halls.

Impulse was going to check from the middle 5th floor up until the higher 9th floor, which would take almost half of the entire day, not counting the time needed to travel from the left side to the right side of the building, since the Marketing Division they're starting from is on the left side.

Impulse walked through the connecting hallway, going past a lot of other employees, but Tango wasn't in sight. He sighed, thinking of what he'll even say to him if he does find him.

"...so you think he might have been sent by the X-T-V?"

Impulse froze, hearing two voices talk as he wandered through one of the 8th floor side corridors. It was eerily quieter in the higher floors, since they were closed for normal employees and are only open to some higher ups, including him since he was the head of the marketing division.

"Yes. Those scums were probably the ones that ordered the hit. I'm specifically thinking about a certain person inside of it..."

Those two voices were the CEO of Aque Corp and his right hand man. And they were most likely talking about what happened to Impulse.

"Do you think it was the CEO of that company?" Bdubs asked.

"Nope," Scar replied. "Even if it was him, I'm certain he would've sent 'Virror' instead of 'Red Bullet'. He also rarely does something like that anyways."

"Well, then who do you think ordered it?"

"A certain worker there that stands out from the rest..." Scar mumbled, before changing the topic. "Oh well, first, we need to take action about it. We can't afford to let the news spread too much about this."

"So are you suggesting we should cover it up?"

"Mhm, I'll have to talk to Impulse about it- oh, Mr. Impulse, what are you doing here?"

Scar finally walked by where Impulse was, and noticed him. Impulse immediately felt a vague sense of dread. "O-oh, good day, sire. I was- looking for someone for something." He quickly made up an excuse, which was technically the truth.

"Well, that saves some of the trouble," Scar chuckled slightly. "Mr. Impulse, I would like to talk about what happened to you last night, come to my office for a quick chat."

Impulse, after hearing the previous conversation, knew that something wasn't right, but only nodded and followed after the other two.

Extending out your hand to find out what you missed