"You really should be resting."
I glanced over at Wilbur irritatedly and scowled. "I'm fine. I want to see him. Maybe slap him a bit. Or stab him."
"This is stupid. Rest is more important."
"Says the guy who got next to no sleep for nearly two weeks."
Wilbur huffed and crossed his arms, but he knew that he had lost the argument. I smiled as he simmered quietly.
It was already the next morning. The second Philza told me the news, I was up and out of bed, on my feet and ready to go. Then I was immediately back in bed again as pain overtook my body. Phil made me wait, rest for the rest of the night, before finally allowing me to go with him to visit Smiley the next morning.
As I stood at the base of the stairs leading down, I couldn't help but feel a sense of dread.
Smiley was dangerous. Smiley was unpredictable. Smiley couldn't be contained for long, and we all knew it.
I followed Phil down the stairs. Wilbur stuck firmly to my side, holding a fresh roll of bandages tightly in his hands. He had claimed that it was for me, in case my wounds acted up again. I got the feeling that he just wanted something to cling on to and was afraid of hurting me if he clung too tightly.
"I can't believe it," he muttered as we went. "Just yesterday, I was scared about dying. And now my killer is locked away already. Thank you, Techno."
"I didn't do it," I said with a shake of my head. "Phil did. I tried and failed."
"You didn't fail," our father said from in front of us, not turning around. The tips of his large wings swept across the ground like a fancy yet somewhat useless broom. "You weakened him. Really, you did all the work. We were just the cleanup crew."
I had to laugh at that. "Team effort, then."
"Never thought the great Technoblade would need a team," Wilbur piped up, a small smile floating onto his face.
"I don't, but my family is the best team in the world." I put my good arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a half hug. Wilbur shoved me away halfheartedly, though his smile had solidified. It felt good to see him smile again.
We reached the bottom of the stairs. Tubbo was waiting for us, looking bored out of his mind. Beside him stood Tommy.
"Tommy?" I asked in shock. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," he retorted, folding his arms.
"I work here."
Tommy hesitated, then huffed. "Right. I just wanted to act cool, man. Try and play along next time, sheesh."
Wilbur made a small strangled sound. He looked like he wanted to laugh but also didn't want offend the boy. Understandable, but unnecessary. Tommy was always offended at something.
"I told him that we had caught Smiley," Tubbo explained. "You know, I figured he deserved to be in on it, since he's never gonna get over it if we leave him out."
He already knows him so well, I thought with a slight shake of my head. "Fine. But how do you know, Tubbo? Does word get around this fast?"
Phil cleared his throat, drawing our attention to him. "Actually, he was there with me when I caught Smiley."
That was new information to me. I glanced over at Tubbo for confirmation, unable to believe it until I knew for sure. The boy nodded and smiled widely, placing his hands on his hips.
"I don't sleep," he said brightly.
I stared at him. "I mean, I can go long periods without it," he amended. "Usually, I'm on patrol, and I can do it for a really long time because my body just doesn't feel as tired as other people might so quickly."
"Tubbo is one of our best patrollers," Phil added. "Man's a literal tank."
The image of a buff Tubbo popped into my mind. I immediately pushed it out again to save Phil from having to get me a therapist.
Tubbo and Tommy moved to the side. I stared down the hallway. It as brightly lit, very different from what movies would portray a prision/holding center to be like. There weren't any obvious guards in sight, but a couple bounty hunters were milling around, shuffling their feet and spinning daggers between their fingers. Probably people appointed by one of the Heads to keep a watch in case things went down.
As I counted their numbers, my heart sank. They needed more. There was no way they'd be able to contain Smiley.
The fact that I had so little faith in Tryxel was disheartening.
"Smiley is the sixth container over," Phil said, leading us forward. I kept my gaze straight ahead as we walked past the other bounties being held in containing cells, waiting to be collected. Snarls and quiet murmured curses wafted around, spat at our little group, most at Phil.
I hated visiting the underground levels of Tryxel. I had only done it once before, when I went to check in on the very first bounty I had ever collected, to make sure that they were okay, and immediately got verbally attacked. Back then, I had been a low-level bounty hunter. Now, as a higher-level bounty hunter, I still hated it.
We passed by a familiar-looking guy sitting in the cell, his head tilted against the wall, tapping his fingers on the ground next to him. I stopped in my tracks.
At a single look from me, the others passed by without a word. I reached out and pressed my hand against the glass of the holding container. "Bandanna Guy?"
"Is that really your name for me?" the man asked with a laugh, standing up and facing me.
"Well... I never got your real one, so...."
Bandanna Guy laughed. His dark hair was standing up all over the place, and by the looks of it, he had slept about as much as Wilbur had. But his eyes still shone as brightly as ever.
"'Bandanna Guy' works," he said. "I do love my bandannas. The word is also nice. Bandanna. Wow."
I couldn't help but chuckle at how easily he had gotten off-topic. We were supposed to be adversaries --- hunter against hunted --- but at that moment, even with the wall of glass between us, I couldn't help but feel like I was speaking with a friend.
"Does that mean I'm not getting a name?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I could give you it, but I'm here in secret. My friend would freak out if he found out that I got caught again for being stupid."
"'Again?' I take it that this is a normal occurrence, then."
Bandanna Guy smacked the glass. "Shut up," he complained with a laugh. "You're just as bad as he is."
I smirked. He really was a prankster, a criminal with a golden heart. Criminal. He barely was that. But he had a bounty on his head, and he had giving out poison --- along with his other very deadly pranks --- to innocent people out in the streets. He belonged in that cell.
I could tell that he was thinking the same thing by the way his cheerful expression had faded away.
"Usually I have a blue bandanna," he said, looking back at his wall. "A very nice one, with the imprint of a cartoon tongue. It was a gift from my friend, to match my cheeky vibes. I had to swap it out for a typical flowery one so that it didn't get traced back to him. I don't want to pull him into my troubles."
He looked so sad that I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. "Looks like you two are very close. Must be nice."
"It is," he agreed, perking up. "I'll just have to get out of here so I can see him again!"
There it was. The words that made my will crumple instantly, like a cookie in a good glass of milk. I bit my lip and sighed, avoiding his eyes. "I can't help you."
"I know," Bandanna Guy said with a shake of his head. "But that's fine. I don't blame you for putting me in here." He hesitated. "Well, maybe a little. You suck. But that's okay."
"I... thank you, I guess? Am I supposed to thank that?"
"Thank me," the man urged. "I like being thanked. I am so awesome that I should totally be thanked."
And just like that, I didn't feel like thanking him anymore.
I glanced back over at my group. They had already reached Smiley's cell. Though I couldn't hear anything, I could tell that Phil was interrogating him.
"I gotta go talk to a murderer," I said with a sigh. "You'll be fine, right?"
The man winked. "I'm always fine. Besides, I'll get out. You can count on that."
***
The atmosphere at Smiley's cell was a lot more tense than it had been at Bandanna Guy's.
Phil stood in the front, his arms folded in front of his chest. Such a stance looked scary on normal people. On Phil, it looked like he was ready to murder you, your entire city, every single person in existence that you knew, and then buy flowers to put over the graves.
"Ah, Techno," he said, glancing over at me as I walked up to the group. "You're here. Finally. Had a nice chat, I presume?"
"It was okay," I said, stopping next to him. The two of us basically created a wall between Smiley and Tommy and Wilbur, who were discreetly hiding behind us. Tubbo stood on Philza's other side, also with crossed arms.
"You certainly took your time," Tommy huffed from somewhere behind me.
So you missed me, I thought with an inwardly smirk. How sweet. And such a coward. But still sweet.
Out loud I said, "It was five minutes! How is that 'taking my time?' You spend twice that long trying to be cool beside my locker every day!"
I glanced over my shoulder at him. A blush spread across Tommy's face. "Shut up," he snapped. "I am so cool. I don't need to try to be cool. Just---"
Wilbur whacked him upside the head, effectively shutting him up. Tommy muttered some undecipherable things under his breath, rubbing the growing bruise. Watching them interact like that... I really felt like Tommy and Wilbur should've been brothers, not me and Wilbur. Tommy and Wilbur. They had the perfect older sibling/younger sibling vibe.
You don't belong.
The voice came as a whisper, a hiss in the back of my mind. Surprisingly, no others joined in. But that one comment was enough to make me need to take a breath to calm down.
I focused on Smiley, who was sitting at the very back of his cell, as far away from us as possible. His head was tilted down, his arms hugging his knees to his chest. He looked so vulnerable. Innocent. It was hard to imagine him as the man who had killed over a hundred people in cold blood.
"We need a name," Phil edged on. "Who is your accomplice?"
A scoff escaped Smiley. "You must be really dim if you think that I'd actually tell you that."
"I thought you'd sell them out for your own self preservation," I said, somewhat surprised. "Maybe you actually do have a heart in there."
He finally raised his head. A metal strap was wrapped around his eyes, hiding us and everything around him from his sight. It was a safety precaution meant for only the most dangerous bounties. Twin cuffs kept his hands close together. A bounty with Gifted strength might be able to break out of those cuffs. But a normal person, or even a Gifted with any other ability? Unlikely.
"Oh, shut up, Technoblade," he snapped. "You might be the type of person to sell out your friends for your own benefit, but I would never. Loyalty is something I treasure. Something you clearly don't have."
My eyes narrowed. I raised my hand, only for Phil to place his own on my wrist, stopping me. He shook his head silently, then turned back to Smiley. "How many associates are there?"
The man considered the question. "Many. Not all of them work together."
What?
"Can you not speak in riddles, please?" I asked tiredly.
He threw his hands up in exasperation, or at least, as best as he could with handcuffs on. "How was that a riddle? You're so---"
"What's the name of your accomplice?" Phil asked.
Smiley scowled at him. "That falls under the category of 'selling them out.' No."
I was seriously getting irritated. He was even less helpful than I had expected, which was actually impressive. If it wasn't for the wall between us, I would've strangled him already.
"How about a hair color, even?" Phil asked, sounding about as irritated as I felt.
Smiley shrugged. He let go of his knees and shifted so that he was sitting cross-legged, back still pressed up against the wall, posture straighter than Tommy's could ever be. "Nope. I've never actually seen her before."
My eyebrows rose. The interrogation just seemed to be getting weirder and weirder. First his associates weren't all working together, and now he was saying that he hadn't even seen his main one before?
"You are so helpful," Tubbo grumbled. He turned his back on the cell, his arms still crossed. "Let's go. He's useless."
"We can still get info," Phil said with a shake of his head. "We need more. We need to get to the root of the problem."
"Weed whacking," I said.
He frowned at me. "What?"
"Er... nothing."
Phil gave me another look, then turned his attention back to the man in the cell. "Tubbo's right. Smiley is just the killing machine. We're not gonna get the genius behind this all out of him."
He ignored the indignant huff from the bounty.
I turned my attention to the glass wall. It seemed illogical to have a wall made of such a breakable material, but Tryxel had thought ahead. The glass was infused with a micro-thin network of steel, woven in a net pattern, to help strengthen the holding ability of the glass. I wasn't much of a science person, but it sounded protective enough.
Even so, I couldn't put anything past Smiley. I needed the name --- or names, even --- of his associate(s) before he was out of my reach again.
"I want to keep questioning him," I said.
Tubbo looked ready to argue with me. But before he could, Phil spoke up.
"If you think you can get more out of him, then by all means, go ahead, Techno," he said with a gesture towards Smiley. "Tubbo, take Tommy and Wilbur and leave. They're not supposed to be here anyway."
Tubbo gave him a stiff nod, though he didn't seem too happy about it. He turned and started towards the stairs up. Wilbur gave me another wide-eyed look as he and Tommy followed the boy away.
"I'll leave you to it, then," Phil said, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Don't act irrationally."
"Would I ever?" I said with a joking scoff.
The look I got before he followed after the others was one of total seriousness.