The Prince of Astoria

A middle-aged dark skin man with straight, wavy hair and a mink coat draped around his shoulders sat in a polished booth with his feet kicked up. He tapped away madly on a smartphone, his taps so hard they were audible across the room. The glow from the smartphone was the brightest light source in the room, as the dim pink LED lights on the wall and ceiling did little to illuminate the place.

Opposite the older man was a significantly younger man with a sharp jawline sitting up in another booth, dancing along to inaudible music. The man was as tall as he was wide, and the garish two piece jumpsuit did little to hide his muscular physique.

In front of the only door sat a man in a cow print outfit with an enormous cowboy hat, polishing a shiny golden rifle. In every corner of the room, a guard stood perfectly still, holding a machine gun.

The door slowly pushed open, causing all three men to look up and the guards to ready their weapons.

A young man, no older than 20, entered the room with his hands up. His hair dropped past his eyes and mostly covered them. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"I’m sorry I’m late," the young man began, "the traffic—"

"It’s fine, Lyle," The man in the mink coat interrupted, "You’re an executive in name only. I can’t punish you, your financial contributions matter too much. If you ran off, I’d be hurting myself more than I’d hurt you."

Lyle stammered over his words, "But wait! It’s not like that GoGo, I—"

GoGo shot a look at Lyle, silencing him immediately. GoGo adjusted his coat and began to speak again, "I wasn’t finished. Please don’t think just because you’re a financial contributor that you can do whatever you want to. If you keep pushing my buttons," GoGo put his middle finger and his thumb together as though he was going to snap, "There will be consequences."

Lyle’s entire body shook as he went to sit down in an empty booth.

GoGo turned to the man in the cowboy outfit, "What are we waiting on, Goldenboy?"

Goldenboy put his rifle on the ground and pulled out a smartphone, "I got confirmation a bit ago that the executives from California won’t be able to make it. Derrick is already here..." Goldenboy pointed to the dancing young man, "...obviously, and Chef Tim is still filling orders. Three chefs called out tonight."

GoGo threw his head back and sighed, "And what about Jeremy? The man of the hour, will he be joining us?"

Goldenboy shook his head, "He told me he’s too scared to leave the club. He thinks it’ll get burned down when he turns his head. He’s ready to video conference right now, though."

GoGo slammed his hand on a nearby glass table, shattering it, "Ready to video con—just put it on. I’m getting sick of all this."

Goldenboy tapped on the screen a few times, and after a few seconds, Jeremy appeared on the screen.

GoGo snatched the phone and looked disapprovingly into the camera.

Jeremy smiled awkwardly, "Hey boss, how—"

GoGo interrupted him, "Cut the preamble. Tell me everything about that meta."

Jeremy began, "Some guy, a kid really, pretending to be a ninja, snuck in through the side bathroom window. He mixed together some household cleaners and gassed the place out. And he threatened to burn the place down if the executives weren’t here by Friday."

GoGo gritted his teeth, "I know all that already. These metas are getting so bold..."

There was silence on both ends for a few seconds.

GoGo continued, "Do you know why these random metas with no clout think they can come into our establishment and blackmail us? Do you Jeremy?"

Jeremy stammered, "I don—"

GoGo failed to repress his urge to yell, "Because of incompetent idiots like you! Your boys are getting busted on the corner and telling the police they’re with us, you get caught trying to blackmail kids for pills, you are dragging down my name! These criminals think we’re easy pickings because of you!"

Jeremy attempted to interject, "But sir—"

GoGo sighed, "I don’t want to hear it, Jeremy. You’re demoted, you are no longer an executive and you are no longer responsible for that club. I’m giving it to Lyle, and you’ll be my errand boy in his place."

Jeremy’s choked sobs were audible through the phone before GoGo quickly hung up.

GoGo handed the phone back to Goldenboy, while saying, "We need to strike back at that ninja meta and whoever he’s with ASAP. The insurance company was already giving me a hard time trying to get that place insured, if it goes down, it’s staying down."

Goldenboy leaned in and whispered, "The ones who’d usually plan out attacks like this are in Cali. How are we going to handle this?"

GoGo snickered, "We’re doing it the old-fashioned way, Gold. No sending in soldiers, we’re going in ourselves."

Gold nodded his head. Derrick, who stopped dancing a while ago, got up and walked out of the back room. Gold got up and pushed the door open, calling out, "Chef Tim, grab the long gun! We’re going hunting."

____________________________________________________________

As the sunset, and dulcet orange hues filled the evening sky, Etienne swung the heavy front door to the mansion open. It was dark, all of the curtains were drawn close. A light in the kitchen providing the only light downstairs. Etienne ambled into the kitchen and pulled the laptop from his jacket. He set it on the counter and plopped it down on a nearby stool. Boxes lined the kitchen, stacked up high on the floor with few overflowing onto the counter. Each box was messily marked with a number.

Etienne peeked into one box and saw it packed to the brim with shurikens. He pulled one out and turned it around slowly.

"Gabe wasn’t lying when he said he has connections. These might be better than the ones I was using on Tashiro Island."

Etienne continued to admire the weapons until he spotted a small brown box wrapped crudely with tape.

Etienne put everything else down and grabbed it. A noise came from inside the box. Etienne put his ear to the box, and the noise began to sound like voices.

He ripped it open and discovered a smaller box, sleek and shiny black. He removed the top from the box and stared at the singular black earpiece surrounded by cushion.

Etienne wiped the earpiece off and put it in.

On the other side, he heard Gabe’s voice, "So there are no records of him anywhere? He must be a ghost...or maybe he’s from some little village that doesn’t keep any digital records. But then how’d he get on the plane..."

"Uhhh...Gabe?" Etienne chimed in.

Gabe whispered, "I’ll call you back."

His voice became more cheery, "Master Etienne! I’m happy to hear you finally put in that earpiece I paid a fortune for. I’ve had mine in for the last couple of days, for this exact moment."

Etienne went back to examining the weapons, "Thank you for that. And excellent job on the shopping trip. These are on the same level as the stuff from the island."

Gabe chuckled, "No need to talk in code. This is a closed network, nobody can listen in on us. I’m happy to you hear you like those, finding half of that list outside of cosplay websites was a struggle, but apparently Oregon is home to a few open-minded and indiscriminate black smiths. I hate to think we’re potentially shopping at the same place as criminals but..."

"Forget that. After we talked earlier, I went back to Ellis Street...back to the old house."

Gabe was silent for a minute, before meekly asking, "What did you find?"

"Nothing useful. One of the twins lives there, I couldn’t tell if it was Lionel or Lyle though. Silent alarm went off...I think, or maybe security saw me breaking in. Either way, it got messy, I grabbed a laptop and blew the place up."

"Why would you do that?" Gabe questioned, "Aren’t you a ninja? Don’t you want to stay incognito for as long as possible?"

"That’s a silly question, Gabe. After all the torture and trauma they put us through, don’t you want to see them be paranoid and squirm and lose whatever composure and respect they have?" Etienne smiled evilly, "Besides, even if they see me coming, they’ll never see me coming."

He leaned against the counter and motioned the laptop he pulled out earlier, "This laptop should at the very least have a clue to the families’ current location. I wasn’t pulling up any information online, even on the deep web, so I believe they’re hiding it on purpose."

"If they have it hidden from the world to that degree, do you really think it’s wise to run in there willy-nilly? I’m sure they’ll have meta humans guarding them, and meta human ability dampeners to stop any intruders."

Etienne nodded along, "That’s all well and good. Luckily, I’m not a meta human."

Gabe was quiet for a few moments before asking, "You’re not?"

Etienne chuckled, "Why are you surprised about that? The test that doctor did should’ve told you everything you need to know. I’m not a meta human, just a ninja."

Gabe sighed, "I’m not even going to bother asking you to explain that more. Are you going back to the club tonight?"

Etienne opened up a box on the floor containing black clothes neatly folded and placed on top of each other.

He pulled out an oversized stylish black hoodie with a mask built in to cover his face and mouth.

"I’m definitely going if I can wear this," Etienne mumbled.

"You like the clothes I picked?" Gabe smiled, "This brand sells some modified military gear fashioned into streetwear, way more durable than anything else out there. They call that piece a ’double panel hooded jacket.’ If you give me some more time, I can find something better..."

Etienne cut him off, "No, these are perfect."

Etienne put on the hoodie and grabbed out a pair of oversized black sweat pants with pockets protruding out. He slowly put on the sweatpants and thought to himself about how comfortable they were.

Sitting at the bottom of the box was a pair of narrow black sneakers with black laces.

As he put them on, Gabe chimed in, "I think I also have a solution to your hero dilemma. Clear whatever plans you have for tomorrow morning, someone is going to be meeting with us to discuss it."

Etienne yawned loudly and looked out the window to his left. The sun barely peeked over the rising and rose up slowly.

"I’m glad you said tomorrow morning, because I’m going to sleep until the club opens. Try not to wake me up unless it’s an emergency."

"One more thing before I let you go, Eti. Does the name Shu Takino ring any bells?"

A wave of emotions flooded Etienne’s mind; joy, nostalgia and regret. But his memories were completely blank.

Etienne put a hand on his temple and shook his head, "No, doesn’t sound familiar. I’ll think about it while I’m laying down for bed."

"I won’t hold you up, talk to you soon," The headset made a high-pitched sound and faded out, signaling the connection being stopped.

Etienne leaned against the kitchen counter and looked up at the ceiling.

"Shu...I definitely know the name, but I don’t remember..."