7th February, 2031.
200 nautical miles East of New York.
On an unnamed chain of remote islands, there lay a dense jungle, middle of which was an ancient temple in ruins.
Going deep inside the ancient temple, there were a lot of different structures depicting a haunting amalgamation of dark along with weathered stones and ominous carvings everywhere of sinister figures.
Amidst this atmosphere lay an entrance, flanked by menacing statues of whose stone eyes were seemingly watching every intruder with malevolence.
Inside the entrance, the atmosphere grew thick with an unsettling aura while the air carried an acrid scent of incense.
This scent came from the rituals being performed by people shrouded in black robes, their heads covered by hoods of their robes.
At the back of their robes was a symbol of a black serpent coiled around a blood-red dagger with flames engulfing them in the background.
An altar was present in the middle of the hall on a raised platform and these people in black robes were chanting and praying around it.
While these guys were praying, at a corner of the hall, there were four people in the same black robes around a round table, having a meeting.
"What's the status of WH-31?" A person asked in a voice that seemed neither manly nor feminine.
"The dice has been rolled. Awaiting confirmations from Team J's end," a feminine voice answered.
"No obstacles thus far," a manly voice added.
The person who had asked the question nodded their head and asked, "What's happening in the New York branch?"
Nobody answered the question and silence ensued.
The person turned to the fourth person who had been silent and asked again, "What's happening in the New York branch?"
There was still silence.
"Codename 7, what's happening?"
Still no answer.
The person sitting beside the one called Codename 7 called out the person and nudged their body.
What followed was Codename 7 falling down on the ground with a thud.
"!!!!!" The three people around the table got alarmed and took a defensive stance.
A few minutes of being on guard later, they realized there was no possible threat in this place.
They decided to check Codename 7 and searching his body, they found a phone with a note stuck to it that read:
Check the roof of this guy's mouth.
They did what the note asked and found another note stuck on the roof of Codename 7's mouth.
The note had a passcode on it.
These people weren't stupid and understood what this meant.
They put the passcode in the phone they found and unlocked it.
Once the phone was unlocked, it got a call from an unknown number.
Picking it up, the three realized it was a video call and on the other side was a blurry figure of someone with cyan-hair wearing a black face mask.
"You must be wondering what's happening, am I right?" The voice sounded robotic and the three couldn't make out if it was a man or a woman.
"Who are you?" One of them asked.
"It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is the reason why I am contacting you." The person answered.
The three stayed silent and didn't speak.
"I know who you are and I know who the person I've killed was. So let's save ourselves the trouble of introducing each other and talk about the business."
The three continued to listen without speaking.
"I'll help you in your WH-31 event. I'll make sure it has a hundred percent success rate. However, what I want in return is the assassination of a man from New York." The blurry figure said.
After a long while of staying silent, the one with a neutral voice said, "what makes you think we would want to help you? You killed one of our crew, why would we trust you?"
"Trust? Pfft." The figure laughed, but right in the next instant, said in a serious voice, "Do you have a choice?"
The three didn't respond to this question.
"If I can help you with your event, I can also ensure it never happens. Despite having this ability, I am choosing to initiate a fair exchange with each other so that we can have a long term cooperation."
The three took a deep breath and let the reality of now sink in. They had no idea how they encountered someone like this from out of nowhere when all their dealings were done with utmost secrecy.
They looked at each other and nodded their heads, coming to a common consensus without any discussion.
The person with a neutral voice turned to the figure on the phone and said, "if you want a long term cooperation with us, you need to repay us with something equivalent to Codename 7's life. Only then—"
"I can get you in contact with Al-Tehran and the Ryujin Syndicate."
The three breathed heavily hearing that. Still, even though the offer was too damn good, the person with neutral voice asked,
"What about Umbra?"
The blurry figure smiled. "Get ahead of yourselves once again and I'll make sure there are no benefits for you."
'This bastard.' The three thought simultaneously.
They were just trying to negotiate into having an even better deal but it kind of backfired. Though, instead of blaming themselves, they cursed the other person.
Al-Tehran was a group that operated from the middle-east and had their claws deep into the entirety of Europe.
Getting connected to them meant getting access to Europe.
As for the Ryujin Syndicate, they operated from Japan and had ambitions to control the whole of Asia.
Umbra controlled the whole of the underworld in the African continent, which meant having access to important places like the Suez Canal that were major areas of trade and commerce.
Umbra was much bigger than Al-Tehran and the Ryujin Syndicate combined.
It was obvious why the blurry figure would lash out when asked for a connection with them.
The three people talked with the blurry figure for a few minutes and finally the deal was sealed.
These guys would assassinate the person the cyan-haired figure had asked and in return would get help in their WH-31 event along with compensation of getting a connection with Al-Tehran and Ryujin Syndicate.
The phone self-destructed after the talks were done and the figure had told them that they'll contact these guys if they had work again, leaving these people flabbergasted knowing someone knew their organization so well.
***
Central Park, New York.
A beautiful lady with cyan-hair wearing a black face mask was sitting on the grass with her laptop on her lap.
She closes her laptop and takes off her face mask, revealing a cute face that would make people kill each other to have a look at.
She stretched and said with a smile, "If these guys aren't dumb, husband should be killed in a month or two, fufufu."
She then shook her head. "Poor husband, he only just started his mortal life and is now going to die for the second time."