“Honestly, I don’t see why I have to work with this child!” The teenager yelled at an older general. A shorter person stood next to the general, staring blankly at the yelling person. “Annette, can you stop? You are causing a ruckus in headquarters, which most people dislike,” The general sighed, shaking his head. “Looks here I know you dislike working with anyone that is younger than you, but-” Annette rudely cut him off.

“If you know that, then you should let me work with someone older or let me solo this mission!” She crossed her arms, “I don’t see what the issue is, anyways why do I have to work with him?” She questioned the general, then gave a glare at the younger person. The boy  glanced up, his icy blue eyes meeting Annette’s emerald eyes.

There was a tense silence in the room until the general started to talk. “Erm… anyways, you do need to work together. I would change that but the boss told us everyone needed to be paired up for missions like these…” Annette gave an annoyed snort and rolled her eyes. The general started to speak but was cut off by Annette again. “Fine, I will work with him, although I’m not going to like it.” The boy slightly smirked, finding Annette amusing and then he spoke.

“Well then Annette, it’s nice to meet you,” Then he pointed to himself, “I’m Stephen.” His voice had a slight accent to it. Annette stared at him, not sure of what to think of him. “Anyways, you should go grab your weapon and get ready for the mission, after all we are going to be leaving in a few moments.” He walked off with a slight limp in his step. She slightly cursed under her breath, and walked off to her room.

Annette’s room was a dull gray. She never really cared about putting anything in her room because nothing kept her interest. She walked over to her bed, and reached under it, grabbing a weapon. The weapon was like a scythe, and the edges of it was an electric yellow. She smirked, swinging it around a little bit, but then stopped remembering she had the mission.

Annette met up with Stephen and he didn’t carry a weapon on him. “Are you serious?” She growled at Stephen. This felt like a slap in the face. “Honestly, if you want to slay monsters, at least bring a weapon with you!”

“I could say the same for you. You’re not wearing armor and isn’t that needed?” Stephen glanced up, a mischievous glint went through his eyes.

The teenager scowled, “I don’t need armor. I’m fine without armor, after all I have been doing this for over a year now!” Her emerald eyes darkened. Ugh, I already have this kid and his smart mouth. I’m already done with him and his attitude, Annette sighed and shook her head. At least I won’t have to work with him again after this mission.

“Hmm… well whatever you say, let’s just get going to our missions zone,” Stephen shrugged, and then started walking with a slight limp in his step. Annette started to follow him, keeping some distance away from him.  Her eyes looked at his leg with the limp. Stephen glanced back, catching her looking at his leg. “Confused about my leg?” He asked, slowly down next to Annette. She nodded, “Honestly, it strange seeing how you have a limp. After all it doesn’t seem like you have been in many battles.”

Stephen shook his head, “Sometimes I had to fight some monsters, but one day I got caught off guard and well, uh, the monster attacked my leg. Luckily it wasn’t too bad.” He shrugged again.

“Wow. I wasn’t really thinking you got your limp from a monster, you really don’t seem like the monster fighting type, even though you are doing monster missions,” Annette stared at him slightly surprised. She wasn’t thinking he got his limp from a monster. So he has dealt with monsters, Then she glanced away, feeling slightly bad how she was rude to him earlier. “Also, I apologize for my behavior earlier. I’m not really a huge fan of working with anyone, mainly if they are younger than me.”

He laughed, “It’s fine. I understand the whole dislike for working with anyone, heck I understand about the younger thing too. You think they are going to screw up because most of the time if they are younger than means they are a beginner.” Annette nodded in agreement. Then they both stopped, seeing the forest in front of them.

When they walked up to the nearest tree it seemed as if it was dying. Parts of the branches were blacken, the leaves were a dark sickly purple. “So I’m guessing our mission is here, seeing how this place is a mess,” Stephen muttered looking around the area.

“Yup, this is the area. They said it was infected with some sort of sickness from some dark purple creature. Which isn’t that helpful because they didn’t really tell us what the creature looked like-” Annette stopped talking when something dark dripped in front of her. Stephen tilted his head upwards, seeing a creature with a long dark snout. It’s mouth was slightly open showing all the crooked teeth it had. “Get back!” Annette yelled at Stephen. They both jumped back in time, and the creature’s tail slammed into where they were.

The creature jumped down from the tree. It had a thick body, with gray spikes coming out from the top and sides of it. It’s short stubby legs had large claws at the end of them. It’s underbelly was lighter than the rest of the body. The tail was also thick, but it was long.

Annette was breathing heavily, but grabbed her scythe which seemed to have electricity pulsing through it. She charged at the creature, raising her scythe to kill it. The creature was much smarter than that. It slammed its tail into her, making her lose her grip on the scythe. “No-!” She growled before crashing into a nearby tree.

Stephen was slightly stunned from just seeing the creature. I already seen this creature before… this was the one that attacked me a while ago! His breathing became funny, as his pupils got smaller. “Oh no, nononono,” He stepped back. The creature was heading towards Annette, who was slowly getting up. Stephen noticed that, and he started to focus again. He balled up his fist, and a strange mist was forming around his hands, turning into ice. Within the next few moments the creature had something cold slam into its snout. It roared and the black droplets dripped out of it’s mouth. It landed on the grass around the area, making it steam. It’s acid! I should've known. Stephen jumped back from the creature, but he was too slow and the creature rammed into him.

Gah- this can’t be the end, Stephen thought, feeling like a truck just slammed into him. The creature was right over him, staring at him with it’s four tiny yellow eyes. The creature opened up it’s mouth ready to make the killing blow, but then something grabbed its leg, dragging it back. The creature yelped, and jumped over Stephen.

“Ha… ha.. looks like I stopped that monster in time,” Annette huffed, holding her side. She had bruises forming on her left side of the face. A cut was on the right arm. She limped over to Stephen who was staring at her with a surprised expression. “Stephen, are you ok?” Annette asked with a concerned tone in her voice.

“...Yeah. I should be fine, I just… that monster scared me,” Stephen sighed, getting up. “Don’t we still need to kill it?”

Annette nodded, “Yup. We still do, although we will need to work together a little bit better. I mean we are a team after all.”

Stephen glanced at Annette, “And weren’t you the one earlier who was complaining about working with me?” He had a slight smirk, finding her change in attitude funny. She punched him in the shoulder for saying that.

“Anyways… let’s just to figure out a way to kill the creature. WITHOUT getting injured,” She leaned on her scythe. The two talked for a few moments before hearing a heavy sounding creature crawl in the trees. They both nodded to each other, getting ready to fight this monster.

The monster jumped down from the tree, hissing at both of them. It lunged at Annette, but she dodged without too much of an issue. Stephen slammed his icy fists into the creature making it even angrier than normal. It tried to bite into his leg, but failed when Annette’s scythe cut into it’s maw. It roared in pain, but then the roaring was stopped once ice started to form around it’s legs and mouth. “Goodbye creature,” Annette raised her scythe, and then slammed it through the back of the neck. The creature melted into dust, which blew away in the wind.

They were both walking back to headquarters. Stephen kept asking about Annette’s wounds, but she told him to stop asking about the wounds. “Anyways..” She muttered, “I’m wondering if I can work with you again. I mean honestly you seem like a good person to work with. You don’t have to work with me if you don’t want to, but if you want to.”

Stephen smiled at her, “I would love to work with you. You seem pretty cool to work with.” He held out his hand, “Shake on it?” He asked. Annette grabbed his hand, shaking it.