"Are you sure this is the place?"

The deep voice rumbled softly, his voice expelling condensation with his breathe, it was so cold out. The nicely dressed man seemed unaffected by the chilling atmosphere but his partner in crime chattered and glitched.

"Pft . . . Of c-course. I saw the stray through the window the other d-day. Like I said. Can we leave n-now?"

"No."

"Oh f-fuck it all! Come on! It's f-fucking cold out, Dark!" he tried glitching more to see if that would help heat him up. It didn't work.

Dark scoffed, "Google told you what the temp would be, Anti-"

"That android b-bitch can suck it! I don't trust him!"

"And yet he was right"

"F-fuck off . . . I think he likes to spy on me"

Dark sighed, "It looks like the owner has left a different way, anyway"

Anti snarled, "Him and his annoying fucking teleportation shite . . . . When do we attack?"

Dark just stood up and walked off, "I'll let you know."

The glitch gawked at him, "H-hey! Where you going?"

The other just smirked, "Well . . . 'I' am going home. YOU will stay here and call me when he comes back"

"WHAT!?" Anti shot up, ready to throw a fit.

Dark glared at him, "Stop making a fuss. You will stay here and wait until the 'stray' as you so eloquently put it returns. By then, I'll have a plan of attack."

"But that might not be until morning! I'm not your lacky, ya fooking emo void bitch!" the glitch whined.

Dark stared him down emotionlessly, not at all phased by the other's insult, "Then I guess you'll stay here until morning. Don't leave. I'll know. And if you do, I will NOT be pleased . . ."

With that, Dark disappeared in the shadows.

Anti was fuming, his glitching making popping noises in the silent night.

"Fooker . . . . ." Anti growled but stayed put. He knew better than to go against Darkiplier.

He wouldn't want a repeat of last time to happen when he disobeyed him.

He shuddered at the memory but refused to admit it. It was just too cold out.

Last time Anti disobeyed Dark, he was forced to be a contestant of Wilford's ridiculous show. He only narrowly escaped death a few times.

Not to mention the time when Dark locked him up in his own computer for a week with no way to escape unless the laptop was opened . . . .

Anti never underestimated Dark after that.

So he stared down at the dark and empty shop, crinkling his nose and huddling in on himself to try and keep himself warm. The cold was one of the worst environments for him besides thunderstorms.

He tried to think of what would happen in the morning and he grinned.

'They won't know what hit 'em. The magic freak will come in to start up the shop. That's when he lowers the wards on the perimeter. I can just FEEL his aura around the shithole'

There WAS the problem, however, of any of the others coming in around the day, too but Anti had been stalking around the area for a few days now and found that only Jackie swings by during his patrol and they go out to lunch . . . Marvin then has his assistant take over while he's out and that's when the shop is most vulnerable.

'The perfect opportunity to get what we want'

There WAS the chance of Marvin and Jackie staying IN the store to eat or of what they came for to not be there at all. But Anti thought of that.

'If they stay in to eat, I'll be the bait to lure them out while Dark goes in and retrieves it. Then he can come and save my ass if need be. If the fucking thing isn't even in the shop, then there's only one other place it could be. The Septic house. And the same plan applies if that's the case and Dark will come back to grab me. And he always says my plans are stupid! Ha!'

Anti snorted, 'This IS pretty stupid, though. He KNOWS the magician isn't coming back tonight. So what's the point of me staying out here all night? To make me suffer? Is this his way of getting back at me for accidentally getting blood on all his suits? I didn't actually mean to do it that time'

Oh well. It didn't matter now. This was his job.

Until he fell asleep, that is.

And without even realizing it while keeping warm . . . he did.

.

.

.

"WAKE THE HELL UP!"

Anti was suddenly kicked awake, scatter brained but alert. He saw Dark standing over him with deep disappointment.

Anti didn't even have the nerve to shout back at him.

"I leave you here in charge. . . To tell me when the magician returns . . . . only to come and find you passed out in the fetal position while the store opens without my knowledge?! I TOLD you to call me when he opened the damn store! I can't rely on you for ANYTHING!"

Anti looked down towards the shop to see it was indeed open already. He was still freezing, though and sniffled, "Ah fook off . . I told ya the shop hours are on the f-fooking window down there . . . . . we don't n-need to attack anyway until lunch. Remember? The plan is-"

"Full-proof?" Dark scoffed at him, "Like all your other plans? I swear if this doesn't work, Anti, we're through. You can go find somewhere else to live since you're just mooching off me anyway. I swear you're nothing but a useless deadbeat."

Anti didn't respond to that. He was used to Dark's criticizing ramblings. He wouldn't ACTUALLY kick him out of the house.

He sniffled again and coughed a little, "What t-time is it?"

The suited man sighed heavily, his anger already deflated, "It's ten in the morning. Dumbass. Did you actually catch a cold out here?"

"Hehehehheh . . . not everyone has such a cold soul as you" Anti giggled, "See? In a way, it's p-perfect. Now we only have to wait an hour until-"

"Wait, where's he going?" Dark interrupted him.

Anti turned back to see Marvin leaving the store early. Locking the door and walking away.. . . but the wards were still down.

"Huh!" Anti laughed, "Looks like it's our lucky day, Darkipoo!"

"I told you to never-Hey, where are you going!?"

Anti shook off the cold and hopped up on the ledge, "I'm going down to break in the store, what's it look like?"

"Wait! You can't just-"

Anti glitched and he was gone.

Dark sighed again, "I work with an imbecile"

Anti glitched inside the shop.

He had never been inside of it before. It was . . .. more comfortable than he thought it'd be.

There were fairy lights strewn about, bean bags and comfortable chairs for sitting, bookshelves full of strange books with symbols on them, herbs in jars, candles and even small strange antiques lined up in a glass case.

Honestly, the candles smelt pretty good and his congested throat was already feeling soothed by the small fumes.

"Hm . . . . I should have disguised myself and came in here beforehand. Maybe THAT would have been a better plan . ."

"Probably not"

Anti snickered, hearing Dark's voice behind him, "See? What'd I tell ya? Nothing to worry about! I'm a planning genius!"

"Right. We'll see" Dark walked around the shop, looking for something in particular, "So where is it?"

Anti shrugged, rubbing his runny nose on his shirt, "I wouldn't know. You said you knew what it looked like. If it's not here, then we could check out the basement?"

Dark's eyes glowed red, "Celine says to check behind the counter"

Anti rubbed the back of his head and pointed at the cash register, "Over there?"

"Where else is there a counter, you idiot?"

"So mean" Anti mocked feeling hurt and hopped behind the register.

He bent down and froze.

On the middle shelf under the register was a box with a note on it.

'Gotcha'

"What the-"

'CRASH!'

Anti flinched and cursed, seeing Jackieboyman crash into the shop.

"Goddammit, Anti!" Dark yelled at him but honestly the glitch couldn't care less at the moment.

He took out his knife and grinned at the hero, hopping out from behind the register, "Well hello there, hero . . . . . what brings YOU here?"

The man looked insanely similar to Anti except for the red and black suit, longer hair, muscles and blue mask. Anti always thought the outfit was so stupid looking but today . . . it DID look a bit menacing. Anti wasn't at top strength at the moment having stayed out shivering all night.

"Anti . .. I could ask you the same thing" Jackie smirked but it quickly turned to a scowl, "Thought you could just break in here and get away with it?"

The glitch twirled his knife around, "Something like that"

Dark and Anti were on either side of Jackie and the Iplier chuckled, "You're out-numbered, hero. Besides . . . you know what I can do. You think you can best ME?"

"AND me?" Anti butt in.

It was Jackie's turn to smirk as Anti heard a gun click behind his head.

Dark's expression changed from confident to . . . marginally less so.

"Who's out-numbered now?"

Anti recognized that voice, not needing to turn around, "Brody . . . . . it's been a while. How've ya been, loser?"

"Anti" Dark got his attention. He looked disappointed in Anti, "Shut the hell up"

Anti frowned, "What?" he didn't get it. Until he finally turned around.

Chase had a gun to his head but also behind him was the doctor, the mute AND the magician.

They were ALL there.

'Shit' he thought to himself, 'I could have tried to take on Jackie and Chase but if Marvin's back, too . . . . we really are fucked. They tricked us. We should abort'

Suddenly, he heard heavy footsteps behind him but glitched out of the way, causing Jackie to run into Chase.

Anti dodged the bullets as Chase fired at him, weaving through Marvin's bookshelves for shelter.

He could hear Dark grunt and imagined he was fighting the magician himself.

Anti tried to glitch out of the shop but found that he couldn't, 'Damn stray must have warded the place up so we couldn't escape as easily!'

He ran with mild glitching to get to Dark. His 'escape' was just a ploy, though, and he whipped around, flinging his knife at Jackie.

Another failed attempt, though, as the hero caught it and ended up flinging it back at him!

Anti wasn't expecting that and couldn't dodge as it hit into his leg, "Rrrg!"

In the background, Dark was barely holding his own against the magician who was smacking away Dark's attacks like nothing. Even Dark hadn't been ready for all of this.

Dark was angry, 'This is all Anti's fault! If he had stayed away, he might have seen them all coming to plot the damn counter-attack! He just continues to fail me every single fucking time!'

But as he looked over, he saw his friend on the ground with his own knife in his leg, 'Damn moron!' he hated that he actually gave a shit about him.

He went to go grab him. It was his intention to grab Anti and disappear into the shadows.

But the others were a lot closer to Anti than he liked.

He had to make a difficult decision.

Anti ripped out the knife and tried to run again but Chase shot him in the back, taking him down again. He looked over from on the floor to see Dark on the other side of the small shop.

They caught each other's eyes and Anti swore he saw Dark mouth an apology.

'No . .. he's not gonna-'

But the Iplier just sunk into the shadows near the bookcase and disappeared.

Leaving Anti on the floor bleeding.

'No. . . he had to . . I understand. . . .'

Anti felt a weight crush him, the magician holding control over every muscle in his body. He felt himself being flipped over on his back and groaned as his wound felt the cold tile under him.

He tried to struggle, he really did. He didn't care if he looked like a wild animal trying to flail, growling and snarling to try and scare them.

The last thing he saw was Jackie's fist.

What's everyone think so far? :D

I'm still working on my other story, 'My Enemy' but I wanted to do another story on the side because I get bored easily and I still have a ways to go yet until 'My Enemy' is finished. So let me know what you guys think of this story so far! I'm excited to see your comments as we go through yet another story together! 💕