Frenemies- ISFP and ENFP: A short story
Another story! Have fun.As the Mi-17 neared it’s destination, one of the two figures inside couldn’t wait to get out. It had been a long night, going from place to place; glorified delivery boys. Well, one boy. The other figure, an ISFP, clearly wasn’t happy with the way things had gone the night before. She’d spent the past 72 hours hopping from place to place, dropping off items that were indiscernible from the next item, all with no specific instructions on what she was doing. In the long run, anyway.
This and the fact that her partner for this excruciatingly dull job was a particularly hyper ENFP that just wouldn’t shut up. She wasn’t even sure of what he was talking about half the time. Some of it, about his family. Some of it, about his time in the Air Force. She was getting a life story without having asked a single question.
In her mind, she felt like she may have been going crazy.
I don’t even know what’s happening right now. We’ve been at this for days and this guy hasn’t stopped talking. We were fine at first but this is just ridiculous.
Yet her face showed nothing but quiet determination. Determination to hear out everything this guy was saying, finish their job, and sleep for several days. Work was work, and she would go through with the job for as long as it took, rarely even thinking about how tired she was getting, but it was this guy’s yammering that was getting to her. He was just trying too hard. She was too pleasant a person to say anything though. He wasn’t being annoying intentionally, he just couldn’t take a hint.
She couldn’t wait until she got to their last objective.
——
He couldn’t believe how little conversation her was getting out of this girl. It had been days he was bored out of his mind just by thinking about how long the flight was going to be with this girl who was trying to sleep every time they sat down. Sure, it was a long flight, but man– can’t a guy just enjoy his work?
He was getting nothing out of her and it wasn’t like he was hitting on her either. Just regular conversation. He had no interest in her romantically, not in the slightest. He was already involved with a woman. No one knew about her. It was his little secret. It went against company policy to date anyone that wasn’t born in the same sector. “Bad taste,” they said. It was the worst part of his job, when they tried to micromanage him. It was demeaning, annoying, and took the fun out of everything.
I’m good at my job, they should just leave it at that.
It all reminded him of a day a couple months back. The incident that brought him to the current job. At one point, earlier on, some office lackey back at the base tried telling him where to stand while he was waiting for his orders from his commanding officer at the time. And at the time, it may have been the most annoying thing the ENFP had dealt with. He let it pass the first time, although he still didn’t move. The second time the lackey told him to move, that was the end of it.
“Hey. Excuse me, guy!” the 6’1, one hundred and sixty pound nerd said to him.
“Excuse me? Oh, I know you’re not talking to ME like that.” the ENFP responded. His comebacks were always to show his disdain for such disrespect rather than to fight fire with fire.
The scrawny man continued, “I thought I just told you, you can’t stand there- you’re in the way of every single package that comes thr-“
And that was that. The 5’9, 175 pound ball of electricity thought back to his old boxing days and just landed one right on the guy’s chin. He immediately felt bad afterward and tried helping the guy up, but conditions being what they were, the man was out cold. Suspension for two months, without pay.
He tried to fight it, but there were too many witnesses to say otherwise. It was completely uncalled for and everybody knew it, but he couldn’t have somebody telling him where to be and what to do as if he were fresh meat. It just wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. People were watching and it was just too embarrassing too let slide, this little stick figure of a guy bossing him around. Your reputation with people can go far and the little man was trying to mess it up.
Why would he act that way? What was his problem? Did I overreact? No…did I? I don’t think I did. He was just so RUDE, man! I’ve NEVER had somebody act that way toward me…
His new Buddhist practices were also thrown out of whack because of this guy. He wanted to reach nirvana but people kept bringing him down.
Yet his suspension would only last for a month before he was called back into service. He was too valuable and everybody knew it. The suspension wasn’t to tell him not do that but to tell everybody else “Look, we discipline everybody!”
The job at hand was going to be quick, clean, and quiet. Quiet wasn’t something he did so well, but if the situation called for it, and it meant his suspension was up and his checks would be coming in regularly again, there was no question about it. He was also told he’d be working with a partner which he was fine with. He loved meeting new people.
He was interested and somewhat pleased it was a woman. The masculine side of him forced him to question how legitimate the job could be if he were to be paired with a woman, but generally, he appreciated feminine company better.
To his surprise, this woman, the ISFP, didn’t talk much. She was friendly and seemed sincere, but he couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t as interesting as he’d hoped she’d be. She seemed fine when they first met and the two seemed to hit it off, but after a couple drop-off points and phone calls from a superior officer, she started acting differently. She was quieter and seemed more frustrated in general. She’d claimed she was just tired, but he didn’t believe that was it.
There’s got to be more going on in there than she’s pretending there is.
Still, he got nothing out of her.
——
Back in the present time, the two were getting closer and closer to their destination. Second to last destination, that is. Thank God, thought the ISFP. She wanted to go sit in the cockpit but the seats were taken by two pilots. She didn’t know anything about flying, but was annoyed that they had two. She wanted one of those seats. She took a mental step back. It may have been better she didn’t have a better view, as the weather was beginning to worry her.
The subtropical climates they’d been in for the past few days were getting more and more bizarre. It was rumored that some brilliant scientist had been working on some “doomsday device” that allowed their enemy to manipulate the weather but man, if that didn’t like superstition to the ISFP. Blaming bad weather on a man or men seemed like something out of Greek mythology. It was true though, that the weather would go in and out of spells like someone was experimenting on it, not really sure of what they were doing.
Almost as if the ENFP knew what she was thinking, he asked her.
“So what do you think about this stuff going around?” He couldn’t help but smile.
“What stuff?” She asked, already having an idea of what he was talking about.
“You know; this ‘Weather Man’ people keep talking about.” He was still smiling. Partly from how crazy the talk was and he was now contributing. And partly because he knew he’d caught her interest. “People are going crazy about it. Like it’s really happening. Whatchu think? You think some little weird man’s got control of the sky? He could barely finish his sentence without laughing. “I’m thinking he’s like Michael Jackson up there. Just singing in a high pitched voice, lightning, going everywhere.” He started laughing again and doing Michael Jackson impressions.
The ISFP started laughing again, quietly. Given the circumstances, she could only put so much into it.
“Umm…I don’t know.” she started quietly.“I’ve read a little about it and I just don’t think one guy could do all the stuff they’re saying he can do. Weather modification is what it was called, I think.”
The ENFP immediately picked up on a distinct lack of interest in the topic. At least he though he did.
“Hey, I didn’t offend you, did I? Making all the jokes about Michael Jackson, calling those people crazy?”
She became confused. “What? No…”
“Okay, I’m just checking. You seem a little stressed out, you alright?”
She rolled her eyes a little but he didn’t see due to the red light overhead. It made everything black and red. It wasn’t the easiest to see details on a person’s face with light like that. Though she was getting to the point where she hardly cared. And that was saying something, as It took a lot for her to get to that point.
“I’m fine.” she murmured.
“You sure?” his head down, eyes forward intently.
She looked up ahead to see how much longer it would be. Thankfully, their destination was just up ahead, visible even in the weather thanks to all the lights surrounding it.
“Yeah, I’m good. You ready to go?”
He hated feeling dismissed. After a disapproving look, he answered. “Yeah, let’s go.”
The ISFP’s job description was always a little fuzzy to even her. There wasn’t an official job position listed for her exact role, but ultimately, she knew what she needed to do, and she always did it well. Off the job, she may have seemed lazy to her peers but anybody that had ever worked with her knew better. Her quiet, usually friendly demeanor wasn’t an act either, it was just that work was work.
She could see the ENFP jittering excitedly. Not nervously, it didn’t seem. But the rush a person would get as their transportation was landing, there was no time for hesitation and if you were in this position at all, you were ready by this point. She was ready, he was ready. It would be the same routine as it had been for the past couple days, and like everyone’s favorite superstores, every place looked almost exactly the same. So much so, the ISFP was experiencing deja vu for the second time in the recent days.
It was for just a brief moment, the ISFP regretted taking the call that she did. The call that soured the mood and pretty much ruined the rest of the trip. But that was just for a moment before she snapped back into the moment. The chopper had landed, the air traffic guy, who clearly didn’t do much in the first place, ran out, waving them down. What was said over the comms by the pilots and the tower was between them and didn’t concern the ENFP nor the ISFP. All the choppers in this so-called war were painted the same with minor differences so either would be landing on either side’s soil. All of this trouble, just to be covered by the rain anyway.
If they’d landed, that was good enough for them.
The back of the chopper whipped around and the cargo door opened. Standing there was an unfortunate soul that may have just been doing his job, but it was the wrong job. The ISFP ran toward him from the dry safety of the cargo hold to the drenched environment of an island that could be ventured in no more than a couple hours. Her sword was unsheathed by the time her size 8 boots splashed through a small dip in the ground. The pouring rain was to their advantage.
The sword sliced across the poor man’s neck so cleanly, blood didn’t begin to drain from him until a moment after her blade left his skin. From the throat all the way on through, it seemed for a second to the ENFP, still on board, that the man’s head was going to come off. In the rush of the moment, she just as quickly turned back to place the tip through the man’s back, just to be sure. With how fast everything was happening and the weather as ridiculous as it was, she didn’t realize how deep she’d cut until after she’d indefinitely finished him off. One cut would have done, but she was making sure. She really hated this part of the job.
She pulled the blade from him as his body hit the ground in a splash of water and blood. Mostly water, though. The ENFP then ran out to meet her as she was already heading for the entry way and two more were on the other side, not having seen what had happened to their first buddy.
The ENFP huddled behind her, waiting for her to keep going on her end of the deal. Two more men walked out, expecting this to be just another night evidently as their weapons weren’t even drawn. The ISFP, not surprisingly, dispatched them easily. The one further from her was the first to go, as it always made the opponent closer to her look the opposite direction of where she was, giving her just enough time to deal with the remaining soldier. The ENFP was especially disgusted by all of this. None of this ever felt right to him but he hardly had a say in it and he was just waiting to get to his part of the mission.
As the two made their way through the complex, which really wasn’t all that complex, the ISFP would go through the same motions as before: sneaking, crouching, surprising, killing. There was only a couple hundred cubic feet to get through before the two reached their destination. If they were found out before getting to their goal, alarms would be activated, possible reinforcements, possible death and worst of all, as far as their jobs were concerned, all of their previously completed work down the drain. It would all be for nothing if this last bit couldn’t be finished properly.
Not the last objective of the ISFP’s mission, but the last of the immediate undertaking.
So it went, she continued to make her way through the grassy area, next to the pathway that the few soldiers there were would walk on. It seemed stupid to her for soldiers to have a very specific pathway to walk in circles around, making themselves predictable, but seeing as how this was just a job to them and they were given no real reason to be suspicious, she understand their lack of distress. She wouldn’t have been as calm if a helicopter landed in the middle of a rainstorm. She would of bet on full alert. But the job made her stressed out and little paranoid all around.
The ENFP followed closely behind. A couple drops of blood splattered on his face as she worked on the soldiers. He was only able to tell the difference between the blood and rain because of the difference in temperature. It was so minute that it was hardly noticeable, but at the same time, the death of someone else wasn’t easy for him to trivialize and the only person that understood that better than him was her.
——
Finally making it to the tower, there only seemed to be one more man walking the staircase. The building itself resembled more of a lighthouse than a radio tower, as they all did. Because initially, the towers were lighthouses. The ENTJ commander that owned these miniature islands and every speck of sand on them had bought a couple of them previously from a millionaire that lived in the states and would come to visit occasionally on vacation. But after a meeting with the commander, he took whatever offer it was he was given and voila; the island was for sale. A very good price too, evidently.
The ISFP took her time mapping out the pace of this last soldier; his pace and rhythm, the time it took to get from top to bottom. She didn’t want to mess up right at the tail end of it all. The ENFP however, didn’t see this as any different than any of the other things she’d done that night.
“Come ON.” he thought. “Just go. Just get him. Go.”
They were dripping wet, hiding under the staircase at the very bottom. It was amazing he hadn’t caught them when they opened the door with how quiet it was inside as opposed to the downpour outside. “Good fortune” was the phrase that kept going through her mind. She could feel her partner’s impatience but she wasn’t going to do anything mess with the routine that had gotten them this far.
The soldier slowly but surely made his way downstairs, each step he took caused the two underneath the stairs’ hearts to beat faster and faster. By the time the soldier reached even the second to last flight, the ISFP thought her heart was going to explode. The man didn’t look like anything particularly unique.
Just a guy doing his job. He’s just doing his job, he doesn’t think he’s going to die. He has no idea what’s going on. Thoughts like this were going to mess things up and get her killed one day.
The man paused. No steps were heard anymore and they weren’t going to look around the corner in case he was facing their direction. And he was, in a sense. The two intruders’ point of entry led right to them. The wet foot steps leading from the outside door to the bottom of the staircase was just a bit suspicious. He checked the bottom of his own shoes to see if it was from his original entry. But there seemed to be different sizes in steps and too much water for him to have brought in on his own. He took a step closer to the bottom to investigate. And another step.
And another.
He stopped on the steps right above the two delivery boys, as it seemed everybody in the staircase had stopped breathing. Water dripping off of their clothes was the only sound. The iSFP waited just one more second before easing out to see where their haunter had stopped. But just as he had turned, to silently warn his superiors or to ignore the signs altogether, she’d hopped up the side of stairs, found ballast by grabbing onto the railing and jammed the end of her blade into his less occipital nerve and kept pushing right on through. He wouldn’t have felt a thing and it was the only solace she could offer in times like these. To herself and her victims.
——
Cracking the door open to the radio control tower, the man in the seat turned around from reading his magazine just in time to see two people he didn’t recognize enter the room. By that point, it didn’t matter if he saw them. They’d made it this far, there was not stopping them. The ISFP took a step to the side as the ENFP made his way directly for the man in the chair that was desperately trying in vain to grab any sort of communication device that would help him or at least hurt them. Didn’t mean a thing.
The ENFP grabbed the man around his neck to put him in a sleeper hold of sorts.
“Easy now…easy….don’t struggle. Don’t struggle. I got you. I got you.”
The man continued to slap his hands around aimlessly until he gripped the ENFP’s forearms and seemed to stay right above unconsciousness. He placed the man back in his chair, forearms still wrapped around. As the man was safely in his seat, the ENFP did what the ISFP would never get used to seeing; placing his hands on the side of the nearly unconscious man’s head, sprawling his fingers out to get the best grip, the ENFP closed his eyes and placed his forehead on the back of the man’s head. Their last delivery was made, right between the Occipital artery.
Just as soon as it happened, the man that seemed almost dead immediately sprang back to life, jerking away from the man grabbing his head and excitedly grabbed the radio in front of him as if he’d just learned to use his own motor functions. The ENFP’s eyes were closed as he seemed to be praying.
The man speaking into the radio contacted someone on the other line that spoke using terminology that the ISFP still wasn’t familiar with. And she didn’t need to be. It was the ENFP’s job to take care of that, she just did the heavy lifting until he did the talking. The ENFP’s specialty was linguistics and it showed here as his mouth matched the man speaking into the radio’s, word for word, albeit without sound.
He was meant to tell them that the incoming ship was enemy’s second delivery of robotic conscripts was on the way. In reality, the first shipment had already been on it’s way while the second ship had already been hijacked by a different faction and was being used as a temporary command center. Had the enemy outposts seen or heard anything unsavory by the passing ship or missed a check-in or something else they were meant to know, everything would have gone to hell. The ship had already been taken over so it was easier to infiltrate each outpost and have everything appear to continue running smoothly to the enemy base as the ship got closer to a base that was originally a secret.
After a couple minutes of letting their superiors know through the body of the enemy that they’d infiltrated the outpost, then contacting enemy headquarters to let them know that everything was a-okay, it was time to go. Things were a lot easier when you had a man that was able to hack into people’s brains and control them like an expert marionette.
When the ENFP’s message was finished and the man was through serving his purpose, the ISFP stepped in, and regrettably discarded him. It would have been nice to have left him alive but once he’d gotten an idea of what happened, he surely would have done something to ruin their all the work they had done.
——-
On the way back home to the ship that now belonged to the ESTJ captain, the tired pair made their way over. It would be a short flight, twenty minutes or so. The rain had finally passed and so had night. The sun was coming up and the ENFP had finally shut up. At this point, the ISFP didn’t care though. She was exhausted and ready to be done. And she almost was. The ENFP, letting no quiet moment stay that way, chirped up. The doors to the chopper were open but the headsets let you speak at a reasonable volume.
“So what are you doing when we getting back? Passing out?” He was smiling again. Tired, but happy to be done.
The ISFP nodded subtly. “Yep.” She paused for a moment. “One last thing, though.”
“More? Since when? What are we doing?” He sat up, clearly not ready for more to do. You could see it in how red his eyes were.
“Not you, just me.” She spoke softly.
“When? Now?” He asked, relaxing a bit now that he wasn’t going to have to do more.
“Yep.” she answered as she took her sword from the seat next to her and swung it into his belly. It was something of an odd gift in a way, as he’d want to know what was going on.
As blood and other fluids filled his lap, he looked to his killer to find a reason. She was staring next to him, not able to look him in the eyes.
“Wh….” was all he could say before she cut him off. It was too much for him to speak anyway.
“You can’t sell secrets to the other side, man. Defeats the purpose. You can’t make under-the-table deals with girlfriends that work for the enemy.” She would briefly look to him out of annoyance that he put her in this position. Moments like this, she would quit if she could. He looked hurt. In more ways than the obvious one.
“And you can’t talk your way out of this.”
——
On the ship, the ESTJ Captain peered out to sea to watch his Mi-17 come in for a landing. A few hundred feet away, he watched as a dark object dropped from the side of the chopper, down to the water, going under, never to resurface.
The chopper landed and just as quickly, the ISFP exited. Tired and bloody.
The ESTJ laughed, smoking cigar in the side of his mouth. “There’s our girl! Medic! Get to this girl, see what she needs!” He continued laughing. “How are ya feeling?”
“Tired.”
“And what’s-his-name?”
“Taken care of.”
“Thought I saw him drop out there. Like a turd to be flushed. Backstabbin’ bastard.”
The ISFP gave a worn smile, knowing her job was done and something had to be done about her temporary partner, but ever since she got the call from her mentor about cutting him loose, it made everything else about the night drag.
The Captain continued, clearly feeling no sympathy for the former agent. “He could control minds but couldn’t read’em. Lucky for us. Made things easier!” He paused for a moment, realizing that he might have just woken up, but his soldier had gotten next to no sleep.
“Why don’t you head on over to your new room? Go through that door over there, we’ll set you up. We’ll let your buddy know you’re okay. He just left a yesterday. On the island now, getting ready to get rid of the second shipment of these androids. By the time we’re done with this ENTJ, he’ll realize most of him his men work for us. But you can just get some sleep.”
—–
On the ENTJ’s headquarter’s, in his secretary’s room, a double agent in the form of an ISFJ secretary rolled over in bed, next to her ISTP partner. He’d been there less than a few hours on his newest assignment and had already made his way to her room. When it came to any kind of physcial activity, he was down for it. He wasn’t as good as he thought, but he was an expert.
“Alright, here’s your ID badge and be sure to head to Conscript 0085, otherwise this information won’t add up an-”
“You don’t need to tell me this stuff. I’m here, you don’t think I already know what I’m doing?”
“You might know what you’re doing but you take too many chances because of it too.”
“Psh.”
“I’m serious. This commander is smarter than you give him credit for.”
“No, I don’t think he is.”
“And these newer conscripts. They’re…more odd than the last guys he had here. They’re more boneheaded but they’re strong. Really strong.”
“You’re giving them TOO much credit. They’re just guys. They won’t be more of a problem than the last ones. Not a big deal.”
“Just don’t get caught with your pants down, it’s all I’m saying.”
As if to dismiss her warnings, the ISTP kept talking as though she wasn’t. “Let the Captain know I’ve made it and will be at our designated spot on time, tomorrow night.”
To read the other stories that may (or may not) directly connect to this one, click on one of the links!
Soldiers and Spies- ISTJ and ISTP
Brothers and Sisters- INTJ and INFJ
Zombies Ruin Everything 
Discuss!