Etienne sped down the street, guided by the dull orange sunlight.
"Why are these things never near Astoria?" Etienne thought to himself.
He reached down onto the passenger seat and flipped open a shiny black box. He grabbed the earpiece and slipped it into his ear.
"Gabe?" He called out
There was static for a moment, then Gabe's voice chimed in, "Don't worry, I've always got my earpiece in. How was the event?"
Etienne loosened his tie, "Boring, as always. That hasn't changed at all. I shook a lot of sweaty old men's hands and chatted up a bunch of rich people. The only interesting thing was some of the guests."
"Did you see Lionel?" Gabe questioned.
"No—well, yes, actually. I spoke to him briefly, but he left before we could have a proper conversation. But that wasn't the interesting part. The leader of the faction Money is busting his ass going against Melpo. Apparently, his real name is Julian Mason. He left with Lionel while I was talking to the sponsors."
Gabe was silent for almost a full minute.
He finally responded, "Are you sure?"
Etienne shook his head, "Of course I'm sure. I wouldn't say something that crazy if I wasn't sure. I've been telling you, Gabe, all of this stuff is connected. GoGo, The Black Company, my family, all of it."
"So what are you gonna do?" Gabe asked.
"About Melpo?" Etienne paused for a moment, "Nothing for now, I'm sure I'll be forced to confront him sooner or later if I keep supporting Money. For now, I want to go to that address you told me about, see if I can break into that email server."
The landscape around Etienne shifted from barren, single-lane highways to dark buildings and houses.
"I'll get your tools ready—"
Etienne cut him off, "Don't worry about all that. This is a stealth mission so I'm traveling light. I just need one of those Totska knives and a handful of shurikens."
Etienne darted between tight roads and pulled off turns with precision.
"Before I get there, one more thing. How far away is this place? It's not hours away, right?"
Gabe scoffed, "Don't worry, Eti. It's not far at all."
____________________________________________________________
Four hours later…
Etienne stared at an ornate wooden gate, flanked by stone pillars and wire mesh on both sides.
Etienne panted and placed his hands on his knees.
"I don't think I want you as my tech guy anymore, Gabe," Etienne struggled to speak between exasperated breaths.
"No one else is willing to do it, so you're stuck with me," The smugness was evident in his voice.
Etienne still attempted to catch his breath, "At the very least, I wish I didn't have to park the car twenty minutes away. Give me the rundown on this place."
Gabe typed on his computer, "Not much is known. According to some permits I scraped up, I gathered two things: your aunt and uncle had this place specially built, and they have some military-grade defenses in there. Are you gonna be alright?"
Etienne stretched his arms out, left then right, "I never told you how my powers work, did I? I can do a lot more than just throw shurikens and swing knives."
Gabe sighed, "You're right, you never told me. And you also never told me where those powers really came from."
Etienne looked around, confused, "I thought I told you about the ninja village. After the plane crash—"
Etienne looked up at the gate and spotted two infrared dome cameras. He pulled his hood down quickly.
Etienne held his hand up in the direction of the cameras and closed his eyes as the air began to distort like a rock being dropped in water. A high-frequency ringing sound began to emanate from his palm. After a few seconds of this, there was a spark, and a fuse blew in both of the cameras.
Etienne put his hand up to the earpiece, "I'm pulling the earpiece out for now. I'll update you when I get back to the car with the hard drives."
"What are you doing? Were you spotted?" Gabe's worried voice became muffled as Etienne put the earpiece in his pocket.
Etienne turned around and bent his knees. He backflipped high into the air, easily clearing the fence, and landed perfectly.
Etienne stomped toward the front door, swinging his shoulders.
A few mercenaries decked out in bulletproof vests pointed assault rifles at him.
They all screamed out different commands, their voices overlapped each other and cancelled each other out.
Etienne continued forward even as the shouting ceased and guns were raised.
Etienne sprinted toward the closest mercenary. In one motion, he grabbed the assault rifle from the man's hands, swung it into the mercenary's face, and knocked him out cold.
Etienne aimed the gun at the other mercenaries. They fired first. As Etienne squeezed the trigger, the gun just clicked. He dropped back, dodging behind a tree for cover.
He pulled out the magazine and threw the gun to the ground. He pulled one of the bullets out of the magazine and threw it at one of the mercenaries, sticking him in the neck. He pulled out two more and struck the remaining mercenaries in the chest.
He put the magazine in his back pocket and continued toward the door. A tall, muscular wall of a man stepped out of the front door before Etienne could get close. The man was draped in different types of camouflaged armor. Straps and satchels lined his body.
"You look like a tough one," Etienne taunted, "You think you can take a punch from me?"
The tall mercenary growled and smashed his fists together hard.
Etienne ran up to him and uppercutted him, sending him flying several feet into the air. He landed out of sight behind the house.
Etienne examined the house fully and began to grit his teeth. The two-story house was beautiful and picturesque, with different kinds of woods present for the different rooms. The doors and the windows were intricate and hand-crafted.
He balled his fists tight, causing him to bleed through the fabric of his hoodie.
"So this is the fruit of my parents' labor? A gorgeous house, one of many, I'm sure. You robbed them and left them in the past. I won't let you get away with this..." Etienne thought to himself.
Etienne shook his head and unclenched his fist.
"No…I need to calm down."
Etienne walked around the side of the house slowly, the barks of mercenaries audible not far behind.
"They all have high-caliber weapons, and I can't heal forever…"
Etienne looked down at his side and noticed his hoodie was slightly torn. A bullet grazed his side, he put a hand over the wound and groaned.
He gritted his teeth and thought, "I can't keep healing for much longer…"
Etienne stopped at the green rectangular fuse box and stared at it for a few moments. He punched the fuse box hard, putting a large dent in the front and causing it to spark. He winced at the pain in his hand.
"I need to focus. Focus…for once I don't have to hold back..."
Etienne grabbed the Totska knife from his hoodie and inhaled slowly. He exhaled and began to clear all distractions from his mind.
Even as mercenaries yelled at him and pointed their guns at him, he closed his eyes and continued to breathe in and out slowly.
"With the marks on my hands, I can mark objects with my chi to do various things. But with the mark on my chest, I can feel the chi around me. Flowing through all living things…"
With his eyes still closed, the area began to materialize around him. The grass and trees were faint white outlines. The soldiers, their shouting now completely inaudible to him, were wispy white blobs.
Etienne held his knife out in front of him, toward the nearest soldier.
"Once I fully focus, I can finally see the Dividing Line. The optimal path to eliminate my enemies."
A red line appeared from the knife and pierced through all of the wispy white blobs. The line was loose and slack at first. Etienne watched as the lazy red line snaked its way into the house. He looked straight through the walls as it pierced the dozens of soldiers in the house. Once it pierced the last soldier, the line tightened and went taut immediately.
Etienne looked back down at the tip of his blade, the origin of the red line.
"Time feels so slow like this. As long as I follow the Dividing Line, I cannot lose."
Etienne lunged forward and swung his blade full force at the first blob before swiftly moving onto the second.
Bloody gurgling and gunfire were silenced by the overwhelming calm in his mind.
"Follow the Dividing Line…" He repeated it continuously in his head like a mantra, as he leaped and slashed along the red line.
By the time he reached the final wispy white blobs, his focus began to wane, and his body began to slow down. He finally opened his eyes and saw a lone soldier, a young man, pointing his assault rifle at him and weeping.
Etienne was now inside the large mansion, standing in a room strewn with bloody, lifeless mercenaries.
He approached the mercenary slowly, completely ignoring his incoherent babbling. He grabbed the barrel of the mercenary's gun and bent it, before plunging his knife into the young man's chest.
Etienne turned around quickly and walked out of the room. He walked down the hall and examined the large home. The walls were caved in, and bodies were strewn everywhere.
Etienne looked down at his body. His hoodie was tattered, several bullets grazed him and left marks on his skin.
"So much for not swinging wildly. I should be glad none of these hit me square in the chest," He thought to himself, "Now I seriously can't get into anymore fights. My chi is dangerously low, and I still need to run all the way back to my car."
Etienne stepped into the ruined home and looked around. Papers were scattered everywhere, chairs and tables were knocked over and bullet holes were bored into every surface.
"I need to find Uncle Elliot's study. If I remember correctly, he used to keep his email server tucked away in the corner."
Etienne descended the stairs and walked past ruined room after ruined room, until he came to a wall at the backside of the first floor. The wall was made of a strange rubber-like material.
He put his knife away and put his hand to the wall. He felt as it moved and shifted subtly. Etienne brought his hand back and struck the wall, full force.
Etienne's hand shook with pain, but the wall was completely unaffected.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked past it.
"Panic room. I'm surprised they didn't cover the whole house in it. It must be outrageously expensive. And I'm guessing Uncle Elliot and Aunt Princessa are in there."
Etienne walked down the hall past the panic room and continued examining every room.
The rooms here were not affected by Etienne's earlier destruction. He peeked into multiple bland bedrooms and a large dining hall.
"I guess the mercenaries lived here, with my family," Etienne thought to himself, "They were right to be cautious."
Etienne aimlessly searched every room until he came across a large tower full of hard drives, tucked into the back of a dusty study.
He looked around the room and walked up to the tower slowly. He put his hand against the glass panel at the front of the tower.
"Somewhere along the way, you stopped being so paranoid. That was your greatest mistake."
Etienne tapped the glass with the back of his knife and shattered it. The pieces fell loudly to the floor as Etienne reached in and grabbed the drives out.
He took them into his arms and dropped them into a fitted sheet from one of the mercenaries' bedrooms.
Etienne slung the sheet over his shoulder and thought to himself, "No…this is too easy. Something is wrong."
He reached into his pocket and put the earpiece in. The ear piece was silent for a while, before there was static, and Gabe's angry voice could be heard, "What did you just do, Etienne? Did you just kill—"
Etienne cut him off, a tinge of annoyance in his voice, "We had a deal. I'm not killing them until we secure the proof from the email server. Well, I got the email server."
Gabe's anger did not subside., "No, Etienne, I said I wouldn't help you with some crazed killing spree or any kind of revenge until we had the concrete proof. When you put me in your pocket, it sounded like there was a tornado. I heard screams and shouting and gunfire. What did you do? Did you kill anybody?"
Etienne looked around at the ruined half of the house, bodies strewn, and destroyed furniture everywhere.
Etienne's voice became cold and flat, "They stood in my way. I only did what was necessary."
The earpiece buzzed with static, and then was completely silent.
"Hey! You still there?" Etienne called out. There was no answer. Etienne sighed deeply and walked out of the ruined estate with the sheet slung over his shoulder.