Gifted | Sleepy Bois Inc

Chapter Four

Whispers and chatters about Storm at Tryxel's building weren't nearly as strong as they had been at my school, which felt backwards in a way. But it also made sense. Death was very real to us bounty hunters. We understood it. We knew that it happens.

Organization at Tryxel was exceptionally good. There were many floors in the building, but there were only four I really cared about it: the secondary training floor, the medical floor, the bounty wall, and Phil's office.

Tubbo and I headed up the stairs towards floor three. Bounty floor. The heads usually assigned us bounties, but we could go after ones if we wanted. We could also refuse bounties. But that didn't leave a good impact on the heads, who gave us money, so usually we didn't.

The bounty floor was a wide, open floor, with various bounties plastered on the walls. Not surprisingly, there were many people there.

We walked past pictures of past bounties that had been crossed out by a large black marker. Newspaper clippings were pinned next to them, some with vague images of the hunter that had caught them, others with the bounty in handcuffs without any mention of the hunter. Of course not. Because the police didn't like us as much as they could've.

"Hey man, did you get the bounty you were after?" Tubbo asked me.

I sighed inwardly. "No. He got away."

Tubbo's eyebrows disappeared behind his hair. "From you?"

"Why is everyone always so surprised?" I asked, exasperated. "I liked it better when I wasn't an awesome bounty hunter with brilliant skills. People didn't have as high expectations of me back then."

"Sorry," Tubbo sighed. "You're still awesome, you know?"

"Of course," I said, stopping in front of a picture with a bright red circle around it. It was of a shadowy figure, facing away from the camera. It could've been anyone in the photo, but there must've be a reason for the bounty. Not to mention the obvious red circle marking it. "Do you know who this is?"

Tubbo squinted at the photo. "Uh... I'm not sure. But there's writing next to it, on the wall."

I looked over at the writing he was talking about. There, in looping handwriting, was '$5,000,000.'

"That's a lot of money," Tubbo whispered, eyes wide. "Woah."

Something about the number sparked a memory in the back of my mind, but I couldn't connect it. Probably a fact that would come to bite me on my butt later on, but at the moment, I wasn't too worried.

"I wonder who it's assigned to," I mused. "I also wonder if I can steal it."

"Back off," a voice sighed from behind me. "The bounty is mine."

Tubbo yelped. We turned around to see a boy with pure white hair standing there, his arms crossed in front of his chest. His skin was pale, with a black line running horizontally across the bridge of his nose. More lines ran down his arms, spiralling to his hands. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, a black sweater tied around his waist. He didn't look exactly happy that we were eyeing up his bounty, but he looked more weary than upset.

"Lapis?" I said in surprise. "It got assigned to you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You sound surprised."

"I'm not," I said hurriedly. "I just thought that you weren't into the big bounties. You stick with the bounties that aren't very eye catching, right?"

Lapis bit his lip, rubbing his bare arms with his hands. "True. But this is a really big bounty. It would be useful to have."

Tubbo glanced over his shoulder at the writing beside the photo. "So, did you write that?"