"Pizza delivery service!"

He didn't recall having ordered pizza. It mattered little to him. Somebody else surely did. He could take it and get whatever he spent from the person. Right now, his mind was only focused in the yummy baked dough cheesed disc...

That was, until he opened the door.

"Surprise surprise!" Lawrence punched the guy straight in the face, making him fall back and sprawling blood all over the floor. Some of it also stained his tailcoat.

"I like it with less ketchup, but what's there to be done" he took a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned the blood the best he could, stepping in and looking around. Mika and Christiane followed behind.

"It's certainly... homely" Christiane's smile wavered just a little as she observed the room. Mika followed with a "Wah, my trashbin house was cleaner than this. Smelled better too..."

Lawrence couldn't help but agree. His eyes went from the stained ceiling, to the poorly painted (and also stained) walls, to the messed-up floor with empty bottles and food wrapping, to the worn, grey-looking furniture that looked like someone who hadn't taken a bath in ages slept on them. There was this... exotic smell, somewhere between drunkard breath and piled up trash, perfuming the whole place. He wandered if the people who lived here weren't actually kobolds... No, kobolds were better than this. Goblins. Or worst.

"World War Two soldiers would find their trenches lovely compared to... this" He finally said. Then, he looked at the guy who answered to his knocks. He was dressed somewhere between a street punk, a failed emo and a drunken homeless, leaning more onto that last part.

"Christiane, take care of the... Society failure over there. Mikaella and I will explore this..." he was about to call this a house, but he stopped. He didn't want to dirty the name of all the houses around the world. He had seen abandoned psychiatric hospitals looking better than this place.

"You get me." He said. Christiane nodded, and they delved in the sorry excuse of an apartment. He wondered why Christiane would need a power drill to handtie someone, but he decided not to ask. That bag of hers held lots of secret, and he was sure he didn't want to know most of them.

"Mikaella, use your night vision and scout ahead. In case you find a possible enemy, come back and report. If they notice you, use your ability to escape." She nodded, and disappeared with a puff. Lawrence moved ahead, exploring room after room. Most of said rooms were dorms. Supposed to be dorms, though he imagined wild boars kept the place they slept tidier than this. He looked around for something that could be of any value for him. Not money, no. Information. He didn't expect these men to have ties with anyone important, but everyone knows anyone when you life is one of crime, and he could use a valuable source of information about these Yakuza. It would help him devise a better strategy to deal with that main issue. Anything was infinitely better than nothing, really.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He stopped opening drawers when an unknown grey pasty substance almost corroded away his nose with unimaginable stench.

Something puffed behind him.

"Chief, I found the rest of them." It was Mika. Already? Talk about efficient.

"Report."

"Narrow corridor on outside. Leads to some stairs to the basement. They're hanging around there. Don't seem to have noticed us."

"How many?"

"Seven."

"What were they doing?"

"Idling, mostly. Drinking beers, seating there, talking about themselves. Productive as a sloth can be."

Lawrence nodded. Seemed about right. The numbers matched what the billiard ball-headed guy told him.

"Let's move."

----------------------------------------

"And then, this girl stands up and says~" A crashing noise interrupted the half-baked thug's overly exaggerated tale. Six men stood up and one hurriedly stuffed the rest of his pizza on his mouth.

"What was that?" One of them asked.

Something echoed. Footsteps? Loud ones at that.

Lawrence's figure drew itself from behind a peeled corner, as he made his dramatic entrance to the... hangout spot would be the best way to call it, he reckoned. He was sure mankind in all of its wise hadn't yet invented a word to describe this place. Decorations looked like a metalhead and a motorcycle rider had a baby, and this child of them was taught by a limping donkey. The grown up failure of a man had gotten drunk and decided to vent his rage in messing up this place.

That was the only possible explanation for such a disgusting room. Even satanic cult temples were better than this. Or maybe not. He had no way of knowing.

"You know, I usually make a point on being polite and saying 'pleasure to meet you gentlemen', but looking at the state of this house I can't help but asking instead. What has this place ever done to you?"

Seven round, stupid faces looked at each other blinking furiously. One of them gulped the big chunk of salivated stuff that was once Argi's Pizza.

One of them finally clicked. "Who are you and what on earth are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same thing. This house is propierty of Worne YK, after all. But that, my friend... actually, strike that. That, stranger with whom I don't want to get involved, is completely unimportant right now. Now, if you were to kindly tell me where your... leader currently is, I would be very grateful to you."

Lawrence grinned on the inside. He was getting better at being sassy.

"Look at my face pal. Do you want to try that again?" One of them, the most intimidating one, cracked his knuckles and neck, flexing his biceps in a clear message to Lawrence: "You ain't walking out of this one".

"Not only filthy, but idiotic as well. I will spell it clearly then: You don't want to piss me off. Now tell me where your boss is."

His eyes gleamed purple once again. The ambiental temperature dropped a thousand or so degrees.

"Like I'll fucking~" Something shut him up. Was it the chunk of rubber shoe Mika shoved on his mouth after popping out of nowhere? Was it the guy blacking out immediately after? Was it Lawrence's deadly glare?

They would never know.

"Well then, gentle.. Or not. Let us begin, shall we?"