Isaac sat in a dark room with his fingers interlaced, staring at a wall completely covered in huge monitors. Each monitor displayed something different: one showed a live traffic camera feed, another a local news broadcast, and another slowly scrolled through social media. Isaac stared at each screen with a single minded focus, his body remained statuesque as he examined them.
Isaac heard footsteps down the hall and turned towards the door. The door flung open, and blinding light flooded the ambient dark room.
Isaac sighed, "How many times have I told you to knock before coming in, Opportunist? You're too old to not be able to follow rules properly."
The Oppourtunist immediately dropped to one knee, "Forgive me, Isaac…" The Oppourtunist looked up and spotted Ms. Friendly and Nafeez standing near him.
"I apologize, leaders of Team Wet, but I just received some news, and it's quite urgent. Is GoGo nearby as well?"
Nafeez shook his head, "He's trying to convince that DJ, Derrick, to come to the 'party' on Sunday. He probably won't be back for a while."
The Opportunist nodded his head, "Then I'll just tell you all, and you can relay it to him. One of the new recruits, Cupid, has disappeared."
Isaac turned back towards the wall of screens, and Ms. Friendly rolled her eyes.
"He's a member of Esoterica's royal family, did you really think he would stay here and pal around with us forever?" Ms. Friendly spoke condescendingly, "We expected this."
Isaac nodded his head, "I'm just glad Cupid did his part before him and Floren split. Although I do find it strange, it seems he was holding back quite a bit, and he went out of his way not to kill anyone…"
The Opportunist's eyes darted between them, "Wait, he and Floren are apart of the most famous family in the world? Am I the only one who didn't know this?"
Nafeez laughed, "Yeah, old man, you're the only one. But just so you know, Floren isn't apart of the royal family, he's Cupid's attendant. And probably his bodyguard."
Ms. Friendly's eyes darted in Isaac's direction, "Wait, did you say Floren left too? How do you know?"
Isaac shrugged his shoulders, "I don't, really. I assigned him to the same area as Cupid, but he's been missing since their initiation meeting. Although…" Isaac pointed to a monitor on the far right side, with red circles pulsing on a map, "We've been receiving a lot of reports from this area for the last few hours. I thought it was just a random incident, but that could be him."
Isaac's eyes looked at a monitor on the left, displaying active assignments for heroes for hire, "Seems like the INHO is aware of it too…"
A cruel smile spread across Ms. Friendly's lips, "That means Ninjaman will be there. Isaac, can I go intercept him?"
Isaac turned toward her and smiled, "Patience, Auntie, patience. Ninjaman is coming to our 'party' on Sunday, so you'll have a chance to play with him then. For now, if that is Floren, then let's see the true power of an unranked metahuman."
The Opportunist looked between them and coughed, "There was one more thing as well. A message left by one of his brainwashed victims. They shouted it over and over as they were getting treatment in the ambulance."
Nafeez snickered, "Man you are really good at hyping stuff up."
The Oppourtunist shot him a dirty look before continuing, "The man shouted out 'He's not a metahuman' over and over again."
Ms. Friendly's eyes lit up, "This is a bit of a stretch, but could he be talking about Ninjaman? This could be his version of a token of apology for abandoning us."
Isaac smiled, "I don't know if that's what this means, but I do find that idea very interesting."
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Etienne stumbled through the front door, dropping some shurikens and caltrops. His hands shook as he reached down to grab them.
As he scooped them up, he thought to himself, "I barely took any damage from Cupid or his minions, why do I feel so weak?"
Gabe rushed down the stairs and immediately assisted him. They worked silently and quickly got them all up. Gabe took the unused weapons and put them back in the closet.
"Is everything alright, Etienne? Are you hurt?" Gabe stared at him.
Etienne nodded his head slowly, barely able to stand up on his own, "I'm fine. I don't know why, but I just feel exhausted. I may be overusing my abilities too much…"
Gabe shook his head and helped him stand up fully, "When was the last time you slept for more than three hours?"
Etienne chuckled, "When was that All-White Party?"
Gabe's eyes widened, "You haven't slept since Sunday? Today is Thursday! I don't care how super or metahuman you are, you're still a human. You still eat, you still bleed, and you still need to sleep!"
"That's a good idea," Etienne responded absentmindedly as he shambled to the couch, "Sleep. I think I will sleep for a while."
Etienne flopped onto the couch and pulled everything out of his pockets. He held the earpiece in his hand and went to place it on the end table. He thought about it for a second, before deciding to place the earpiece in his ear.
"Petey, you there?" He called out.
Petey responded immediately, "I was just about to reach out to you. There's a huge situation going on in Brutal, Oregon and it's way deadlier than the incident you just stopped. There is a giant tree growing out of an old factory there, and the tree's huge roots are chasing and impaling people. Three confirmed fatalities so far, ten missing."
Etienne grabbed his things off of the end table and stood up, "Brutal is far, I'll be there in an hour. Is Hardware still unavailable?"
Petey was silent for a moment, "I'm not sure. The system lists her status as unknown, not unavailable. I'm a little new to this, so I don't know what that means, but I'll try to reach her."
Etienne flung open the closet and looked through the weapons.
"These weapons are designed to fight humans using martial arts or something resembling human strategy. If I may have to cut down an evil tree…"
Etienne turned around and looked into the kitchen. He spotted a knife block full of perfectly sharpened Totska knives.
"I'll have to improvise."