"Alright! We made it, now all we need to do is find the restaurant and meet back up with the team!" Apollo said with a little smile that glistened with the lights.
"It shouldn't be that hard to, we know everything around it and we can always ask for directions so we should find it super fast!" Dion said closing his eyes with every word to probably seem smarter.
"Well, in any case, I just want to see the crew again! I know it's only been like two hours but It felt like thirty years!" I said looking around for a map of some sort.
"Same anyways should ask someone for directions or-"
"Isn't it right there?" Dion said cutting off Apollo but making me and Apollo look in the direction of where Dion was pointing. Sure to tell, that was the restaurant and holy it was tall and big. It was the size of a smaller supermarket but still was huge. It looked to have not one story but two stories and its name on the face of the building in big illuminated letters spelling Rehto Edis, Food and Games for the whole city to see. Now that I look at this city, it functions more like a town with this restaurant being its main event. I'm surprised we didn't see it before but it was in plain sight now that I saw it.
"No wonder he spent all his money here, I mean look at this place! It's huge!" Apollo said, pointing and looking back at us.
"This isn't good," Dion said, looking like he just got a headache.
"What's wrong with huge buildings?" Apollo asked with audible confusion on his face.
"Well, it probably means that Alfred is not here. How can they kidnap someone without all these people seeing it if anything this is the last place we should check." Dion said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Well, either way, we still have to go inside, since the rest of them are inside," Apollo said pointing to the building
"Yeah! We have to go inside." I said pointing to the building because let's be honest even if they weren't inside, we all wanted to go. Or at least Apollo and I wanted to.
"Stop acting like you want to go inside for them! You both know why you want to go inside!" Dion yelled at us, making us look away from him facing the restaurant.
"What act? Are you acting Z? Last time I checked I'm being 100% serious." Apollo said with his voice getting slightly higher with each lie he told.
"I'm glad we're feeling the same way! I feel that they're probably so scared for us right now, which is more of a reason to go inside. We're not doing this for us, we're doing this for them." I say playing along with Apollo.
"What he said," Apollo added to make our argument seem more convincing but ended up making it worse.
"Whatever you two say, now come on so we can try to plan a better idea of where Alfred is," Dion said walking even faster to the restaurant to avoid our phrases towards each other acting as we entered the establishment.
CHAPTER 20: Infiltration
Once inside it felt like we skipped time in 20 years, there were the screens from the agency yet way less advanced and seemed to have some type of entertainment on them considering kids were gathered around trying to get a "high score" whatever that meant. My collar then got pulled as we made our way to one of the tables on the second floor.
"Alright you two, we're not here for games nor food we're here to find the rest of the team and try to find out where Alfred is because I heavily doubt they're keeping him here. Now with all that being said, order something off the menu, I'll pay for you guys but you two need to seriously look for them and not get so distracted." Dion said sliding menus to me and Apollo, and we looked at each other with a look of relief and a look of the mind of someone who was going to do menacing things.
"We swear!" I and Apollo both said before we looked at the menus.
"Steak! Let's get steaks!" Apollo said having water steam out his mouth like a waterfall.
'I'm okay with whatever you guys want, if steak is what you guys want then I'm all for it." I said closing the menus and sliding onto the table.
"However, pink lemonade. That's mandatory, no questions asked." I said looking to my side to Apollo and then in front of me to Dion with a crazy look to make sure they got my point.
"You'll definitely get your pink lemonade, we swear!" They both said, but I can tell they were a little scared.
"Well since you guys can order for me, I'm going to try to find our group so we can find Alfred faster."
"Come back to this table if you get lost or something!" Apollo told me before I got too far.
"Alright!"
"Be safe!' Apollo said but ultimately Z couldn't hear.
The table was quiet, each of them looking around the place and only sometimes catching each other's gaze.
"I'm sorry!" Each of them said at the same time that they both took deep breaths and started to laugh.
"Sorry man, it was totally out of my line to say what's best for you. Sometimes I forget that my little brother can be a man sometimes and he should be able to make choices like that, I mean I drink so why shouldn't you be able to do something that calms you down." Dion said
"No it is my fault, I should have never done it, to begin with. It's just that I've been so stressed ever since Alfred went missing. To think some powerful people can rival Alfred's power, let alone contain him still scares me. While bringing a bunch of kids with us as well, I know their training to become stronger than us and it's our job to make sure they are but I don't know why but every time I see them hurt in any way it does something to me. I get a bit angrier and heartbroken than I would like to admit."
"It's because you've grown attached to them. I have to, and I will do anything for any of you guys. Death doesn't concern me anymore, it's the fact of when I die you guys won't be safe." Dion said while a waiter comes and takes the orders and asks for the drinks for the table.
"Well then you won't have to die now would you?"
"Guess not."
"Well, I'm going to help Z with finding the group. You sure you don't want to explore, you sure you're fine just sitting at the table?"
"No, I'm just going to be sipping on the fine wine we have and making sure our food isn't poisoned or anything."
"Alright later... Drunk."
"Later Dog. Annoying Dog!" With that Apollo went to help Z find where the group is.
...
"Kingsley, can you give me a massage?
"Why would I do that?"
"Cuz, I'm your best friend."
"More like a jackass friend."
"Jackass is harsh. I'd say more... The peak of humanity, the best you'll ever have, the toughest, most righteous, smartest man you'll ever meet... friend."
"I forgot how self-absorbed you can be, why did we become best friends again?"
"Well if you're talking about the time we first met you saw me as the devil until we split that pizza. But if you're talking about when we became best friends that had to be the roller skate incident."
"Heh, don't remind me."
"Ha, good times, good times," Koji said which sent the van again into quietness, this kept happening
"Koji, those were good times huh? Kingsley said, cracking a smile.
"Yeah, they were. Wait, don't go all sentimental on me because I asked for a massage."
"I won't do it on purpose. Although, I still need to ask, do you think our good times are ending? It seems that now we go on higher-scale missions and don't get a break doing them, the days of the agency are over. Even if the agency restarted, most if not all the members are dead. No one is talking about it because we're still trying to get the leader back, but I know we're all thinking about it. We lost everyone in one night, no matter how hard we try, someone is always far away, someone always dies, and we always have to fight. Is it because we're getting older? Or is it because the world is getting harsher? Before I used to think if you're a good person, then good things will come to you. But the people who worked in the agency were good people, even if they didn't work directly under the law, they always did what was right. I'm starting to think that even if you live a life of no sins, you'll still pay for humanity's." Kingsley said coldly each sentence making Koji's teeth grind, and making him feel uncomfortable. That's when Koji took a breath and started to speak.
"I know how you feel," Koji said and didn't say a word afterward
"Koji?" Kingsley said, trying to get the rest.
"Oh no, that's it."
"That wasn't helpful at all!"
"Well, I don't know how to answer that sort of question."
"Then don't say you know how I feel."
"Okay, then I won't."
"Geez, you're stupid," Kingsley said, letting out a chuckle.
"Now that you mention it, I'm am stupid-"
"I kno-"
"stupidly hungry. I need food."
"Eh... Huh!?" Was all that Kingsley can think to himself looking at Koji practically drooling from the imagination of food.
"I forgot. Koji works like a battery, the more he stays awake the more he runs out of battery. He should only be at 65% does that mean, this is his 65%." Before Kingsley could even finish that thought the van swerved to the left then to the right making them hit the end of the van.
"Okay, that hurt," Koji said, rubbing his head.
"Right, like if you're going to kidnap people at least know how to drive."
Once Kingsley said that the van stopped in its tracks, making Koji and Kingsley go silent. That's when an almost grinding sound of something before the van started to take motion yet again, however only moving slowly.
"Okay, let's wake everyone up," Kingsley said with Koji nodding.
"Pete wake up, your lazy ass isn't helping," Koji said, shaking Pete viciously but the man still wouldn't budge. "Pete, your cooking is the best I've ever tasted," Koji said to the cook that he was hoping he could have him jump up to the words like a dead zombie yet to no avail.
"That usually always works on Pete," Koji said, scratching his head.
"Oh sorry Koji, I might have used that a bit too much on Pete. You have to wait like a month for that to work again." Kingsley said waking the sleeping Aza who now rubbing her eyes confused about the situation.
"Now what?" Koji said slowly, falling asleep himself.
"Here let me help," Aza said, sliding herself across the van to Pete's body.
"Pete. Wake up. Now." Aza said over Pete with a smile, a very scary smile.
That's when Pete's eyes started to open and he looked around the room, then without a warning, Pete started breathing heavily and almost started to scream. Luckily, Kingsley put his hand over Pete's mouth causing him to be silent. "Don't scream, when I remove my hand don't scream." Kingsley said, removing his hand and Pete taking a deep breath.
That's when Pete tried to scream again and Kingsley put his hand back on his mouth. "I said don't scream, not become a monkey!" Kingsley said looking at Pete whose eyes finally calmed down, that's when Kingsley removed his hand and Pete sat up holding his head.
"Sorry. I had a horrible dream that I was cooking and Koji complimented my cooking, then out of nowhere a demon came and killed us all. I wonder why that dream took such a south turn?" Pete said, still rubbing his head.
"I wonder why," Aza said and Koji nodded his head too.
"It was Aza's fault, her aura changed his dream. That's how scary she is, remember Kingsley don't mess with Aza." Kingsley said to himself why everyone in the van was trying to figure out what could have made Pete have such a terrible dream.
"You know what they say when you have a dream about someone or people dying it's usually a sign of a shift in your life, maybe things are going to start going your way," Aza said to Pete who smiled at the words. "Or someone is going to die." Aza finished off making Pete's smile go away.
"Well none of that matters, because I think the van stopped," Kingsley said out of the blue.
"You're right, it came to a complete stop," Aza said.
"Does that mean we arrived where they wanted us to go?" Pete said stretching
"Well whatever it is it can't be tha-'' Koji started but then was cut off by alarms. Beep, Beep, Beep the alarms echoed through wherever they were to then for the alarm to be followed by a countdown from 10.
10
"Oh no," Pete said.
9
"This can't be good," Koji said.
8
"Can someone remind me of the worst-case scenario when something is counting down from 10?" Kingsley asked in a scared tone.
7
6
"Well worst case, we die," Aza said, shrugging her shoulders.
5
"You're so negative," Kingsley said
4
"You asked, I just gave you the truth," Aza said
3
"Welp, this is it." Pete said closing his eyes"
2
"Bye, everyone." Aza and Kingsley both said, now that Aza started to grasp the situation.
1
"Come on guys it can't be tha-" Koji started but couldn't finish, because they started falling while still inside the van.
"Noo!" They all screamed as they were descending downwards.
"Wait, we won't survive this fall won't we!?" Kingsley said with terror in his voice.
"What are we going to do?" Aza said holding on to Kingsley as they were falling.
"Stop holding me! Don't bring me down with you!"
"No! If I die you die too!"
"What!?"
"Calm down you two," Pete said
"Speak for yourself! Your legs are shaking and your teeth are chattering! Have we're falling!" Aza and Kingsley both said at the same time.
"All of you calm down. Did you forget my element?" Koji said before taking a deep breath. "Elemental Zoe; Air Style, Blanket of Air!" Koji yelled before the van hit the bottom of the fall. Luckily, Koji used his air style just in time for them to all land on the soft blanket of air that he provided them.
"Thanks, Koji." The three of them said in a tired and loopy voice.
"Don't mention it," Koji said in the same tone that they heard the doors to the van open and two men in black jumpsuits came in front of the van doors and one started to yell as soon as they saw them moving and talking.
"Taze them! Taze them now!" The first man yelled to the other man, making him take Aza.
"Aza!" Everyone yelled but Aza put her hand up stopping them from freaking out.
"Seems like you're out of luck, low tier shocks don't work on the final boss," Aza said in a creepily manner before putting her index fingers out in front of her and then spacing them the size of a pencil.
"Calling all the lighting to my fingers!" Aza started to say "Welp, this should be over in an instant Koji said with a smirk. That's when Aza put her two fingers together and started to laugh like a mad scientist.
"Specialty Zoe! Double Uno." Aza said as she tapped the two men on their arms causing them to spasm and yell at the top of their lungs before falling lifeless on the floor.
"Buy me dinner next time," Aza said with an evil smirk.
...
"Where is he?"