[center][h3][color=00a99d]『𝔼𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕥』 [/color][/h3][/center]
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FWMorlL.png[/img][/center]
[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center][hr][center][color=00a99d]𝕎𝕖𝕕: 𝕆𝕔𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘   / /   𝔹𝕒𝕝𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕀𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕   / /   𝕃𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕖   / /  ~𝟘𝟝𝟝𝟝[/color][/center][hr]

Like the drenched clothes clinging to his skin, Ernie's thoughts only seemed to drag at him more and more as he trudged back to the lighthouse.

He was miserable and for good fucking reason.

West had never made him fight city-crushing giants. West had never forced him into a team of psychopaths that had long since fallen off the edge of sanity. Hell, West had never made him get his food from a convenience store in a shitty, small-minded town with a shitty, small-minded store owner.

And most importantly, West had no Amigos. The same could be said for Reno.

Monsters could be trusted to be bloodthirsty. Tear apart a town with no ulterior motive. But Amigos? Dastardly, cruel, selfish humans. They terrified him more than any ice giant could. He'd seen the trigger fingers arrive in stained envelopes. The careless execution videos. The articles on massacres by the border. Sadistic, borderline-suicidal nutjobs. But somehow the thought of getting eviscerated by a Heph-knockoff's weapons was merely one biggest of Ernie's concerns. The fact that this team was being sent against subnaturals for the third mission in a row raised a dreadful question.

How long before they were sent against Senators?

It made his heart beat anxiously. Ernie didn't consider himself loyal. He'd never had the heart for it, or a cause worth fighting for. Maybe if Reno had gone differently he'd actually be capable of something. He doubted that. Seven years behind the counter had taught him well. They were scumbags through and through, often on a scale just as bad as the Amigos. If it were them against the Unit today, none of the students would have even gotten the chance to fight back.

Strangely enough, Ernie couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at that. He wasn't [i]for[/i] the Senators but he definitely wasn't against them. If things had gone well, he would have been on the winning team. It was a cruel game he liked to put himself through, imagining what could have been. Lived a comfy life with Owen and his friends. Plan that webseries that his group at West had been pitching. Even here on the East Coast, if Ernie ever found the guts to actually do something...

He stopped himself there. Chuckled a bit.

What would he do? Follow Elvia's wishes and be an actor? What a fucking joke. He could do nothing, had [i]done[/i] nothing the entire time he'd been stuck with East. He hadn't even realised that they'd lost three housestaff until halfway through the walk. Too busy watching his own back to even glance at their's. Elvia wasn't going to take that well and a shameful, selfish part of Ernie knew that if she truly was dead then it'd be better for him. He wouldn't have to see the look on her face when she eventually heard.

None of this mattered. He'd be dead, killed by mages far stronger than he and this team before he ever took the time to scrounge up some resolve. The only thing he could do now was deal with the situation at hand. Another try at the radio resulted in static. That only left the reason he walked back in the first place.

[color=00a99d]"Hey, we're heading to town,"[/color] he called to no one in particular, [color=00a99d]"Probably a bad idea to stick around."[/color]