Searching

The black sky poured as Hugo walked down the street towards the house he had once lived in. It had been one of the happiest moments of his life, although he would never admit it. Their Miami HQ had been a favorite of his, it was easy to hide in and he could easily avoid the others. Entering through the front gate, he disabled the security, not wanting to go through the trouble of slipping through security, and walked towards the main house.

The house still looked the same as it had when he had first seen it. Tall and slightly ominous, the house gave the impression of power, and a safe place to hide. As he entered however, he found it to be much different than when he had been here last.

As he opened the door, the sound of children playing came to his ears. Wading through the maelstrom of small bodies, constantly moving with some game or other, he worked his way towards the living room. There, given a wide birth by the children, sat a black and white tigress, her head in a book, looking almost bored.

"Who?" asked Hugo curtly. He wasn't pleased about anyone, especially children, running around his childhood home.

The tigress looked up form her book. As she saw Hugo, her eyes widened with sudden understanding.

"There's a letter for you," she said, pointing to an envelope sitting on one of the tables, "Cedric left it for you."

Opening the letter, Hugo read Cedric's precise handwriting.

To Hugo,

Since you're the only one who might think I would come here, I figured you will be the one to find the chaos this house will likely be in. By the time you arrive, I will be long gone. You can guess where I'll be going, and I won't risk the safety of our operation by leaving the location in this letter.

The tigress who should be here is called Angelina. She is an excellent thief, almost as good as our masked friend and almost as beautiful as our favorite Interpol Investigator. I want you to train her, show her the ropes as you catch up to me. She shows promise. The children are orphans, leave them in the charge of one of the servants and I'm sure they will be fine.

I'm going to find him, and cut his traitorous head off when I do. Catch up soon, I could use a witness.

-Cedric

"You're Angelina?" asked Hugo, after reading the letter.

"Yes. Are you Cedric's 'friend?'" she answered warily.

"Yeah. Come on."

"What?" she asked, confused.

"He said you had promise. I'm here to show you the way."

"Uh-huh. And the children?"

"They'll be here when we get back."

"Alright then. Where to?"

"To pick up a few friends. He'll need them," Hugo muttered as he turned and left.

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The problem with trying to get information is that for some reason, people just don't want to cooperate, no matter what you tell them, Cedric thought as he dodged another spray of bullets. He had tracked Sanchez to the L.A. docks, where he had, quite politely, asked where he could find Wainwright. Well, on second thought, maybe his threatening the set the little weasel on fire hadn't been the best approach. Slicing another series of bullets with his sword, he waited for the fools to figure out that they couldn't hurt him.

"This teach you to try and mess with me," yelled Sanchez, as he hid behind his bodyguards, "Let's see how you deal with someone with real power!" Rubbing his hands together, the L.A. drug dealer began to recite some spell or other.

Cedric sighed. He hated hack wizards who thought they could control powers bigger than themselves, especially when they failed repeatedly. A flash of light and a sudden thud alerted him the spell's success. Coming out of his hiding place, Cedric turned to see Sanchez commanding a behemoth that looked somewhat like both of the bulldogs that had been the bodyguards. Ah, an alchemist, thought Cedric, annoyed, but using his own men as material, he really must suck at this.

The monster charged forward, all intelligence gone as a result of the transmutation. Walking forward, Cedric slashed the monster, severing the spell that held it together. Its magic gone, the behemoth turned to ash, and vanished in the wind.

"Okay, I asked nice. Now, you have five seconds to tell me where Wain is before I started slicing off limbs," Cedric snarled, angry at the sacrifice of the bodyguards.

Instead of answering, Sanchez began to draw alchemical symbols in the air, hoping that he could create another mindless slave to use.

"Wrong answer," growled Cedric as he ran forward, lifting the weasel off his feet and holding him off the pier. After all, everyone knows weasels can't swim.

"Alright," Sanchez smirked, "But you know it's pointless. You're nowhere near strong enough to fight him. He has powers you could not imagine."

"I can imagine, if he hasn't learned any new tricks by now. Look, I don't care what that bastard can do, tell me where he is or I'll throw you in!"

"He's at his family's mansion in Austria," gasped Sanchez, panicing, "As if it did you any good."

"Well, that makes it easy," Cedric said as he turned away. Remembering he still had the weasel by the collar, he chucked hi over his shoulder, into the bay.

"Help! Come on, I told you where he was! I'm drowning!"

"So? Isn't that what the coast guard is for?" asked Cedric before he walked away.