PyroKnight is walking down the street at night. He walks into the same club as before and sits down in a booth. The curtains open up and Queenie begins to sing. She turns and sees PyroKnight sitting in the booth, she faintly smiles and then carries on performing. As her set finishes she walks over and sits in the booth next to him. “Fancy seeing you here Naomi”. She replies with a straight face, “Shinji, you know I sing here every Saturday at the same time”. He leans in closer, “Yes and I’m still going to come watch you perform every week”. She leans back “Hey, don’t get too close you never know if he’s watching us right now or not”. Shinji sits back as well, “true, he could be watching us, but he might not be, guess we just have to roll the dice. Anyway what are you doing in the mean time aren’t you going to come help us out at the chess club”. She looks at him to the side whilst facing forward. “Check doesn’t need me right now he’s busy sending his pawns to do the dirty work. Shinji I’ve got to ask you a question”. He smiles “I’ll answer it but only if you answer mine after” she rolls her eyes, “when you came to the boss asking for help all those years back did you think you’d ever end up this deep? His 2nd in command, his right-hand man, recruiting this many withered to die for his cause” Shinji loses his smile.
“You know like me some of these guys probably didn’t have much choice. Still, it doesn’t matter whether they’re heroes or withered, they are all fighting a stupid war to prove who’s the strongest, and the heroes only help people when it will give them the most fame and glory. To be honest, I don’t care who dies, as long as I keep my promise I made all those years back”. Shinji shuts his eyes for a second and remembers himself speaking to someone, “I promise I’ll look after you” he then opens his eyes back in the bar. “My question” he leans closer “Why are you still here?”. She smiles faintly “you know I can’t leave” Shinji grins “and is that the only reason, is there another reason you want to stay?”. She looks at Shinji and sighs returning to her normal straight face “Can’t think of any other reason I’d wanna stick around” Her eyes look Shinji up and down, he sits back continuing to smile. “Hmm, I bet”. Back in his office, Checkmate has his eyes closed, he is using his ability to watch Shinji speak to Naomi. Check opens his eyes and looks disgruntled.
Back in the bar, they both make eye contact for a few seconds before he stands up and goes to leave “it was a pleasure seeing you again, same time next week” she smiles and steps back a little of her hair “you know you’re going to have to stop coming here right?”. As he walks he shouts back “I would love to but the singer here is just too good”. He walks out the door and continues down the street then heads into his apartment which is a rather sizeable place. He hears footsteps running towards him so he gets down on one knee, a dog runs from around the corner and greets Shinji, he rolls him over and strokes his belly then stands up, “come on you”. He sits down on the couch to watch the news, the dog jumps on his lap and the news comes on. A lady appears on it. “During the demonstration 4 nights ago, Titan challenged the leader of the group behind the recent attacks that left many heroes dead. However whilst distracted a large number of explosions were set off not far away, leaving another 5 heroes killed. What are the motives of this hidden organisation, is it purely to prove that they are stronger than heroes or is there some other sinister plan hidden in plain sight? Either way, let’s hope the HHQ and Protection Agency can do their job and stop this group of withered from killing any further Heroes”. The screen turns off.
Shinji wakes up the next morning on the sofa and receives a phone call, on the phone, it says ‘Queenie’, and he answers. “Morning beautiful, did you miss me that much last night?”. He hears Queenie talking on the other side “The boss wants to see you, be here in an hour”, she hangs up the phone. Shinji puts the phone down, “Guess she didn’t miss me that much”. He looks to the side of the sofa and sees his dog looking at him panting with its tongue out, “but I know you missed me didn’t you?”. He gets up and goes to the kitchen, feeds the dog, showers, puts on his suit and drives his car to the hideout. He walks in to the office and sees the boss's chair facing the other way “Morning boss, Naomi said you wanted to see me”, as the chair spins around he sees Naomi sitting on Check’s lap. He looks shocked for a split second but then continues walking “What’s up boss”, Check keeps a straight face. “Bring him in”.
2 withered bring in a rather beat up and bloody person and throw him to the floor “Turns out one the pawns you hired was a spy working for the Protection Agency, and you know what happens to people who go behind my back”. Check lifts his hand and activates his power, as he does the spy begins to scream out and suddenly dies. “You better be careful Shinji, you’re my most trusted admiral and I dare say my best friend, we wouldn’t want to break that trust by messing up and hiring any more spies now would we, remember if someone crosses my back I will find out”. Shinji looks at Naomi and she slightly shakes her head. “Yes boss, I will make sure all the recruits are 100% loyal to you” he leaves the room.
Check runs his hand down Naomi’s cheek and grabs her chin, pulls her closer and kisses her. “As long as you promise to be mine I’ll always protect you, you know that right”. She smiles awkwardly “I know you will”. “You’re my queen, and a king always protects his queen”.
Shinji walks into a dark, red church, the cross is upside down, and the dark priest is on his knees praying. “Shinji what brings you into the house of fire on such an unholy day as this”. Shinji huffs “The boss wants us to check on the recruits make sure there are no spies”. The priest continues to pray, “oh but you seem to be doing all the recruiting, maybe you should go and check on them all yourself”. Shinji steps closer “and you do the evaluations on them afterwards, so we’re both on the same boat, plus Check is keeping a close eye on us at the moment and right now it’s not a good idea to make him angry”. Kayo opens his eyes and stands up “I don’t think I’m the one that has to worry about upsetting the boss right now, am I Shinji?” Shinji sighs and looks away, Kayo continues, “it’s not just our unholy lord and Check who have eyes everywhere, it seems you may need to come to see me again someday for a confession” Shinji replies angrily, “shut up and let’s get going”. Kayo laughs, “oh you’re no fun today, come on then”. They both walk out together.
Titan is in a boardroom full of PA officers, SGT Izanaki is standing at the front with a board of pictures and information. “A couple of hours ago our mole in the hidden organisation named the chess club went silent, it’s assumed he’s been captured and is most likely dead, luckily he managed to get us some information we may be able to find useful”. He adds photos to the board of Shinji, Naomi and Kayo, there is also 1 showing a dark hooded person and one with a black outline with a question mark in it. “Our spy was recruited by a man you should all be familiar with, Shinji Hirata” Titan mutters, “PyroKnight” the SGT looks over and nods “Correct one of the top 10 dangerous withered that escaped from genesis a few years back, he’s been incognito since the escape but recently became active again recruiting D and C list thugs. Once in the chess club psychological and physical testing is done by a man named Kayo Endo, a previous member of the Hellfire society, a satanic cult that believed if you committed enough sin your seed would activate. Fortunately, this cult was brought down 4 years back but it seems he got away, it also seems he’s continued his legacy as back then he was named the ‘Bishop of Death’. Reports say he can raise the dead and summon demons so not a very nice guy. Next up we have Naomi Kawamoto, beautiful but supposedly also deadly. No prior convictions, no prior felonies, no time served. clean as a whistle or so we thought, turns out there’s a chance she’s shacking up with her boss, her powers are yet unknown. We also don’t know who the leader of this chess club is yet as the recruits don’t get to meet him until something called the chess club initiation. That was today around the same time we lost contact.”
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A PA officer speaks up. “Who’s the last person?”. The SGT continues “we don’t know. He’s an absolute ghost, no one knows anything about him except they call him the rookie. We don’t know his name, his powers or what his role in the organisation is. All we do know is everyone seems pretty scared of him, including the other Admirals”. Another PA officer speaks out loud. “You’re telling me this Kayo guy can control the dead and demons but is scared of him, he must be pretty bad news”. Titan speaks up “So we know who’s in the organisation, we know roughly what they want, mainly just to kill heroes to prove their strength, but do we know what their next move is, what their end goal is, anything that can help us stop them?”. The SGT continues “We know Naomi works every Saturday in a club called the NightCap an old jazz bar down on 12th, we’re going to send a large force of PA officers including a couple of heroes in to capture her, hopefully, if we get her in for questioning the chess club boss should favour her enough not to kill her before”.
Titan speaks up “So we’re assuming the boss's ability allows him to kill people at any range without any traceable way of doing so” the SGT sighs “it looks likely, as you are well aware, the past 2 interrogations have been abruptly stopped as all suspects inexplicably died at the same time, it’s too unlikely to be a coincidence.” Titan thinks for a second “But if he can kill people at such a distance why is he only killing his own people, why not just kill the heroes himself from the comfort of wherever he is?”. The SGT continues “once again the information is unclear exactly how his power works”. Titan stands up “in which case I will help you catch Naomi during the operation this Saturday.” The SGT shakes his head “we can’t allow that, a high-profile hero like yourself walking in there will raise too much attention, she could run before we even get a chance to get her” Titan slams his hand on the desk “but it will be too risky for everyone, we don’t know what she can do”. The SGT continues “The good news is she’ll be alone, and we will have enough men to quickly capture her without any casualties, unfortunately, my hands are tied on this, these orders are coming from higher up in the PA and have been agreed by HHQ, you may be the number 1 hero however there are still protocols to follow. We’ll get her don’t worry”.
Shinji and Kayo walk out of a room, Kayo turns to him “Looks like you have nothing to worry about, everyone else seemed to be completely loyal to us”. Shinji stops and turns “and your little pet down in the basement, Arata, can we trust him” Kayo turns and faces Shinji “He may be one heaven of a scary guy but we raised him since he was a mere baby, he’s always done what he’s told and will continue to do as I say”. Shinji scoffs “Just funny he’s the only one the boss hasn’t got his mark on”. Kayo turns to walk away “Seems even the boss is scared to touch him”. “Hmm well as long as you've got him under control just make sure he doesn’t use that nasty power of his on any of us”. Kayo makes an upside-down cross on his body “thank hell he’s on our side”. Deep down underground in a dark room. Arata’s face appears with a creepy smile across it.
The next week Shinji is walking down the street and as usual, he heads into the club, he takes a seat at the bar and starts speaking to the barman. “I’ll have a whiskey on the rocks please”, the barman replies “coming right up”. Shinji turns and looks around the room “Busy tonight huh”, the barman looks around and replies “Looks like it, but hey I’m not complaining it’s good for business”. Shinji looks around suspiciously. Naomi comes out to sing, she grabs the mic stand and goes to tell the music to play, as she does a number of the crowd get up and start to pull out guns, they all start shooting tranquillisers. As the darts get close to Naomi, they all stop mid-air and Naomi has her hand out. She looks over to Shinji who has turned himself on fire, and a couple of heroes run in through the door. Shinji walks towards the heroes and Naomi towards the agents. Moments later Naomi and Shinji are running out the front door. Shinji turns to Naomi “we’ve been compromised, we need to get back to base and inform the boss”. Naomi nods and they both get into a car and drive off.
Later the SGT is walking through the bar, and a large portion of it is burnt and broken, there are several dead agents and heroes on the floor. He hears a loud thud outside, the SGT turns around and sees Titan walk into the bar. “I should have been here, if I had been this wouldn’t have happened” the SGT replies, “I’m sorry but this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, turns out Naomi had a fan in the audience, Pyro was here, they couldn’t deal with both of them”. Titan scoffs “that was our best chance” the SGT responds “we’ll get another, the good news is that after this they should go dark, that will give us some time to regroup, they shouldn’t be back in action for quite a few months. Next time we’ll be ready for them no matter what” Titan comes closer “and this time I’ll be there to stop them”.
Shinji and Naomi arrive at the base, and they both get out of the car. They go into Checks' room who is already waiting for them. Shinji speaks “How did they know you were involved in this, you don’t have any connection” Check speaks up “most likely it was that little spy we found last week, he was probably feeding back to the PA… looks like your mistake nearly cost me my queen, luckily you made up for it by saving her today so I will let you off… it was lucky you were there to support her right” Shinji looks at Naomi then back at Check, “So what’s the plan now then?”. Check sits down on his chair and orders Naomi to sit in his lap. “It’s simple, we wait for the heat to cool down, we’ll give it a few months and then we’ll strike again, in the meantime I want you to carry on recruiting”. Shinji nods “yes boss, I’ll inform the other admirals and pawns”.
Shinji walks down the long stairs into the tunnels under the base, he walks into Arata's dark room, “Hey Arata we’re going to go dark for a few months, I know you are dark pretty much all the time but the plans are being moved back”, there’s no response. He holds out his hand and a large flame comes off of it. It reveals the whole room is empty.