The Imagination Latibule: Bullet Train - A Sour Taste

Chapter 1

If you had a nickel for every time you'd seen an assassin on the one specific bullet train you were currently on, you'd have 5 nickels.

Which isn't a lot, but weird that it happened 5 times.

From Tokyo to Kyoto; it was a journey you were expecting to be quiet, simple, dare you say... pleasant? A simple snatch and grab. But alas, you had gotten your hopes up just for them to be dashed by the murderers you had encountered, the encounters of which had been in such a short space of time that you found yourself in desperate need of a drink. An alcoholic one. 

The first assassin you'd seen was a kid who you despised with a passion; a kid known as the prince. She was a Russian psychopath who enjoyed hurting people, and those were the worst type of assassins. The second you saw her you decided to steer well clear, and good thing too, because minutes later you'd seen her down an older Japanese man with a feisty taser, and were willing to bet good money she would've done the same, if not worse to you if she'd recognised you.

Then, an assassin called Ladybug, who you shared your handler, Maria, with. He was nice enough - less of an assassin and more of a snatch and grab kind of guy, like you, but his infamous bad luck meant that people tended to die around him none the less. The two of you were surprised to see each other; he had been on sabbatical for the past few months, so you were more surprised to see him. But you gave each other a courteous nod as you crossed paths, whispering, "good luck," which he most definitely needed.

The third was The Hornet. You didn't know her real name, only that she loved to poison people with snake venom... Another one to avoid. You'd accidentally made eye contact with her, but thankfully she had no idea who you were, and she seemed too preoccupied to realise that you'd badly thwarted her a few years back. 

The fourth was a Mexican man known as The Wolf. He looked to be worse for wear, and last you'd heard, someone had murdered his entire family at his wedding... to be fair that was probably what had him seeming down. You'd noticed him stalking Ladybug but decided not to get involved. 

And finally were the duo known as The Twins: Lemon and Tangerine. Everyone called them brothers - they definitely weren't - but you counted them as a single assassin because they worked like a single entity. They were inseparable. You'd met Lemon once; he'd taken a liking to you after you'd helped him and Tangerine on a job in Bolivia, but he'd told you to scram before Tangerine showed up. Apparently he didn't take too well to being helped, because he never liked to admit that they'd been in a tricky situation to begin with. So you'd fled, passing up the opportunity to meet the Tangerine. You'd heard... interesting things, and now was your chance to meet him properly. 

You weren't intending on stopping to talk to the two of them, except that a Momonga mascot had shoved by you, all but forcing you into a seat. Then, when you looked to your right to apologise profusely to the person you'd nearly hit, your jaw dropped and so did Lemons, whilst Tangerine just looked wholly pissed at the giant animal.

"What is he, fucking blind or something?" he tutted as he pushed you off his shoulder, disinclined to acknowledge that it was not your intent to sit next to him. "Do you mind love? I mean come on, we're sitting here."

"It's y/n, innit?" Lemon said, and Tangerine did a double take to him and back to you, then to Lemon again with a raised eyebrow, and back. 

"Aight Lemon?" You greeted casually, deciding on a calm approach. "Been a while." 

"You two know each other then do ya? Who the fuck is y/n?" Tangerine asked his 'twin.'

"Well that's me, clearly," you said.

"Yeah thanks Sherlock, real help that. I mean who the fuck are you and how d'you know each other?"

"She was in Bolivia," Lemon said.

"Oh, you saw the Bolivia job? You a fan?"

"I worked the Bolivia job, and no," you answered curtly and Tangerines mouth drew into such a thin line that you thought it would have been more appropriate to call him lemon. He was sour.

"You worked the Bolivia job. Yeah good one. Now, do me a favour and fuck off before he -" Tangerine went to gesture at Lemon, and then squeezed the bridge of his nose as Lemon rooted around in his bag for something, that you were sure enough wasn't a gun that you watched him do so. "Too fuckin late now innit."

"She's an Edward mate," Lemon said. "She's all good."

"An Edward?" you repeated.

"You ever watch Thomas the tank engine?" he asked you and Tangerine waved his hands in the air like he was gesturing to be absolved of anything that came next. 

"Here we go."

"Hey, you watch something nowadays, what is it, huh? Nothing. It's twists, violence, drama, no message. What's the point?" Lemon asked, and then he pulled out a yellow printed sheet of paper, pointing at the locomotives on it. "What are we supposed to learn?" You shrugged. "Everything I learned about people I learned from Thomas." 

"Oh, yeah? And you bring your sticker book, did ya?" Tangerine asked, folding his arms as he looked out the window. 

"I always bring my stickers with me, you know that." Lemon gave you a smile. "Take tangerine here. He's a Gordon, this blue one," he said, tapping the engine in the corner. "And Gordon is the strongest, the most important, but he doesn't always listen to others." 

You and Lemon glanced at Tangerine who snapped back to attention with a shrug.

"What's that now?" 

"I mean, some people are Edwards; Wise, kind," Lemon said, peeling off the Edward sticker as he spoke. "Some are Henrys; Hardworking, strong. Some are Percys; young, sweet, not all there. Some people are diesels, fuck me! Those are trouble." He handed you the sticker and you took it, letting it stick on your finger.

"Edward," you said again, and then you scowled as Tangerine yanked the sticker from your finger and scrunched it up into a tiny ball, throwing it an unknown number of rows back and into some unsuspecting person's lap. 

"Listen, doesn't matter if you're an Edward, a Percy or a fucking Bob, you need to fuck off before you fuck up our mission." 

"Ah, that," you said, crossing your legs which told him you had no intention of leaving. "Don't suppose you two - dumb and dumber lets say - are here because of the White Death?" 

"He's hired someone else behind our backs. The bastard," Tangerine said with a scowl.

"Did I say I was hired by him?"

"You didn't say you weren't." 

"Man can do whatever he likes," Lemon said, "long as we get our share, and there ain't no cock ups along the way."

 "I don't kill, so that part of the share's all yours," you said, exempt of any murder. You weren't an assassin, you were a thief... Ok, and an occasional assassin when it was necessary to kill. A steal from the rich to give to the poor kind of thief, and kill a child trafficker along the way if the opportunity presented itself sort of thing. You weren't a good person, but you still had more morals than most in your line of work. 

"There's a story..." Tangerine said. "Stop me if you've heard it... Where this woman found herself in the unfortunate position of owing the White Death a tidy sum of money. Now, the issue was it took her some time to acquire this money."

"But she did pay it back five minutes late, didn't she?" you said and he nodded, not thrilled at the interruption.

"Yeah, and what'd he do? Cut her arm off." 

"Fuckin' hell," Lemon said. 

"He said she owed him a finger for every minute." Tangerine folded his suit neatly across his lap. "Anyway, he's not a monster, he didn't make her sit through it five times, he just cut once, didn't he?" 

"Your point?" you asked him, and he calmly adjusted his tie. 

"You might not kill, but I do," he said, dark eyes catching yours. "Get in our way of our mission, and I'll kill you."