Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

Together, Tristan and Nelson had the video done in two hours. The pizza leftovers had the time to get cold, but were still good. The duo had finished them as they watched the final result.

The video was only a minute long. Nelson put on a pristine white suit and covered his face with swirls of silver glitter. Contrasting with him, Tristan put on his black biker-like outfit, red sneakers, and a blue-gray bird mask that covered the entire upper half of his face.

Nelson stood next to a microphone, Tristan just sat with an ukulele in his hands. Both of them had extremely serious, bland expressions on their faces.

There wasn't a single guitar in sight, and the background was just a plain wall with some sound-absorbing panels slapped on top of it.

It already looked ridiculous. But that was the point—showing the terrorists that they weren't taken seriously.

Tristan strummed a pointedly simple upbeat melody on the ukulele. Nelson began to sing. There was no rhyme or rhythm, which was also intentional.

"Oh, wow, someone really exploded with envy,

Because people like them more

Than their oh-so-nice Lord in Heavens!

Well, maybe they'd like the God more

If his followers didn't bring

Fucking bombs to concerts?"

Nelson's voice cracked from emotion at this point.

All the while, the ukulele melody began becoming more and more complex. This wasn't part of the original plan—but when they began recording, Tristan couldn't resist stretching more and more of his skill with string instruments.

The rest of the song Nelson sang with even more emotion, almost shouting, but still hitting the melody.

"Someone just wanted to have fun.

Someone just wanted to have fun.

Who are you, the fun police?!

Fuck off to your cloister,

Leave the rest of us in peace!"

Tristan hit a dramatic final solo, and then both of them bowed to the camera standing on a tripod on the other side of the room.

After a brief pause, Nelson leaned toward the microphone and added to the camera,

"And peace to all who or whose loved ones suffered from those assholes. That could've been us, too—but we won't let them scare us away from doing what we love."

Tristan nodded and took off his mask. The cock-sure smirk was back on his face.

"Yeah. Since when did rock musicians let safety stop them from having fun? Anyway, thank you all for watching. Be cool!"

And on that, the video ended. Nelson clicked his tongue.

"You really went all out with that ukulele, Tris. Are you sure you don't want to redo the video with a better melody?"

A drop of tomato sauce stained his white shirt, but at least his suit jacket was safely hanging over the back of his chair.

Tristan shook his head.

"Nah. I like how it sounds. Very passive-aggressive."

Nelson replayed the video again, using only the knuckles of his fingers (clean of pizza) to press buttons, then nodded.

"That's a good way to put it. And you look very striking just sitting there in silence." He waved his tomato-and-glitter-stained fingers in the air thoughtfully. "A dark, passive-aggressive bird with an ukulele. Damn, I LOVE that image! It could go on an album cover. I hope someone cuts it out and puts it into memes or something."

Tristan made a face.

His clothing was stainless, because his hand coordination let him eat without dropping a single crumb on himself.

"Don't send me memes with us. I will see them all over my newsfeed anyway—I need at least one safe place."

Nelson laughed. When he stopped, there was a mischievous and eager grin on his face.

"So we are sending this version? You edited everything you wanted to?"Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Tristan nodded.

"It's ready. So yeah, let's send it."

He ate the last of his cold pizza, cleaned his hands on a wet tissue, which he had brought exactly for that purpose, and began making a post.

"Derek is going to be mad with us," Nel mused aloud while watching over Tristan's shoulder.

"Derek is too polite to say outright that he's mad." Tristan paused, then added, "He won't approve the recklessness, but he will approve the intent, at least."

Nel chuckled.

"He's such a worried grandma sometimes." He sighed. "I haven't seen my grandparents in forever. They probably hate me, anyway… What about yours, Tris? You never talk about your relatives."

Tristan sneered, but only for a moment.

"Also shitheads. Not worth talking about, moving on." He clicked the 'send' button and raised his arms dramatically.

"Now… Prepare the floodgates!"

***

In reality, of course, nothing much happened within the first few hours. Even Derek was uncharacteristically slow to notice activity from Tristan and Nelson's accounts—but it was also understandable, considering the situation.

Tristan spent his time continuing the research on Noidolism and typing orders to his underbosses. There was a lot of potential for damage within his criminal kingdom if Tristan didn't hold the reins tight.

By evening, Derek called Tristan to express how disappointed he was in his and Nelson's public stunt. But by then, their video got too much traction to delete it.

There was an open war in the comments. Some people claimed that the celebrities "deserved it", others said that the terrorists should've blown themselves up somewhere away from other people, third pointed out that only religion ever made people act this way, fourth just were angry at the dead people…

And the image of Nelson the Herald and Tristan the Harbinger, as someone called their costumes online, spread all over the social networks with new, funny lines underneath.

[POV: YOU TOLD YOUR PARENTS YOU WANT TO GET AN ART DEGREE]

[YOUR SLEEP PARALYSIS DEMONS AFTER YOU TRIED TO PRAY THEM AWAY] Experience tales at empire

There really was no stopping this type of tide. And when there was a controversy, there was attention. Tristan and Nelson were going to become much more popular in the next few weeks.

No way the target audience missed that.

Tristan read the memes and drama posts and smiled.

'Now is your turn… Ass-Angel.'