"What do you want?" Hotarou asked as he turned to see a group of masked strangers in casual clothing.
"We want you," said one simply, advancing towards him while holding out a hand in a friendly gesture.
"What do you mean?" Hotarou recoiled from the hand and took a step back. A tight sensation of nervousness was gripping his chest. While these people were acting friendly enough, he knew who they were: Organization agents.
"We need you to come with us," said the person who had stepped toward him taking the hand back. Hotarou could see that the figure who was speaking was a woman and her counterparts were men. All three, though, could easily take him down by themselves.
"And if I refuse?" Hotarou said with as much confidence and defiance as he could force from himself. He set his teeth as he waited for a response.
"Then we will use force," the woman replied without so much as flinching. "We would recommend that you cooperate. It makes our jobs easier."
Hotarou couldn't think of a single way to escape. They blocked his only entrance and he certainly couldn't fight through them, especially when he didn't have the same training. Perhaps he could talk through it; a method that preserved energy, but never brain. "Are you here for information? I can give that to you."
"Oh, we'll take your information as well, thank you," said the woman politely.
"Well don't you want the others with me?"
"We'll have them with time. You're our main concern right now, Hotarou."
"Why would that be?" Hotarou wondered at her civility and being addressed by his first name by complete strangers. He turned back to his table and began collecting his things as if to cooperate.
"I know you're certainly smart enough to know why, and I'm quite aware of what you're trying to do."
"What am I doing, then?" he challenged. "Should I give my things to your goons there?" he added.
The woman laughed lightly. "No, they're only here if you fight. I will happily take your things. But you are aware that you won't get them back, right?" Hotarou nodded, understanding. He powered the table down. "Anyway, I know you're trying to talk your way out of the situation you're in. If you can talk around us then you can slip out the exit and run away. You won't get very far though."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you don't have any crafts besides this one."
So they don't know about them…or is she faking? "And what will you do to this one?"
"We'll take it with us and destroy it at the base, leaving your friends without a home. Then they'll scatter like cockroaches waiting to be crushed and be easily caught and terminated."
Hotarou shuddered from the eloquent, but cold malice in the words the woman spoke. Terminated? But they haven't even done anything…"And what will you do with me?" he asked, stoically.
"You? You're too important to terminate."
"Important?"
The woman nodded. "We'll bring you to our base and set up a nice cozy area for you with plenty of luxuries and a flexible work schedule and you can work on any blacksmithing project you want. Of course there would be orders to fill for the rich folk that enjoy your work, just to keep them happy. You know how they are." She gestured with her hand and watched Hotarou move things around. "What are you doing now? You're procrastinating and the boys are getting restless."
She lifted a finger then opened her hand. Both men shot forwards towards Hotarou who suddenly disappeared behind a box. He had vanished without a trace.
The woman smirked. "You two search the ship; I'll see if I can figure out what happened."
The other two nodded and ran out of the room, their footsteps fading down the hall. She crouched near the area where Hotarou had last stood. "Very good Hotarou, but you could stand to use a better trick." She straightened up and walked around the room casually the headed towards the entrance. "Well I guess I'll leave now! Take care Hotarou, and don't forget our long walk down that hall together! I hope that we won't need to meet again! Good luck!"
Hotarou heard the woman leave and waited for a few more minutes to make sure she was gone. He knew she sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite tell who she was. He stood up and flipped a switch then pulled back a light, white cover. He was glad she didn't search too hard; she almost seemed to be very lenient with him, unlike most agents. Knowing her, she knew the magnetics and mirrors trick he used to disappear, but she let him slide out anyway.
From there he stepped lightly and made his way toward the hanger at the back of the ship, hopefully the two men hadn't found it yet or else they would be waiting for him. He slipped inside the large area without seeing any of the agents then ran towards one of the jets. He jumped up inside and opened the hatch, pressing a button on a cable connected to the larger craft to open the hanger. There was a loud roar which Hotaoru was sure the agents had heard when the doors opened. A strong wind had suddenly kicked up outside and was blowing sand everywhere and had suddenly filled the chamber when it was opened. He started the jet and turned to see one agent appear to be calling out to someone from the doorway. Hotarou detached the cable then urged the jet out into the wind storm. It creaked with irritation as it unfolded its wings in the wind. He angled it toward the gusts then pushed it to full throttle.
The jet moaned and complained but drove into the wind. Then with another strong gust, it was heaved backwards into the air almost spinning out of control. Hotarou planned for this. He utilized the gust and spun the jet so that its back was against the wind then shot out. The sand could cover him until the agents got their ship then it would be up to him to out-maneuver them. Until that point he resolved to put some distance behind him. He flew in the direction of the wind, due north, toward the forest. He let the jet fly steadily for the most part an occasion eastward gust pushed him off at times, and worked on his watch. Like a walkie-talkie, he set his watch to let an alarm go off on the others' watches. He had made all the watches the group possessed at some point or another and loaded them with certain settings. After he sent out the beacon call he focused on pressing toward the forest.
Behind him the agents had boarded their jets and set their sights on his. Their jets were smaller and faster, but in the end, lighter and more susceptible to being blown off by the wind. They shot after Hotarou, but made slow progress with the wind buffeting them. One agent paged the woman and said with a thick accent, "He's sending out signals from his vehicle…should we block them?"
The woman sat back on the couch in the living room, watching the progress from her wristband. "No, from the signals I doubt he's telling them anything he's just alerting them. They'll come back here then paslėptas and I will round them up."
"Roger."
The woman sighed, and then curled her lips into a smirk. "That poor boy, he's never had it easy, huh?" She popped a chocolate into her mouth; it was something she always carried in case she relapsed into her old habit of smoking which the Organization had forced out of her. "I hope someday he'll forgive me for what I did to him…"
Hotarou knew it was too risky to send the others a direct message but he needed to warn them about their potential danger. Hotarou thought then pulled out a bag and tied it at either end. Satoshi should understand…he put it on a scanner in the jet (he had recently found this feature in only this jet and repaired it for an occasion like this) then sent it.
On the other side of the plain, Satoshi was flying with Ibara and Irisu crammed into the small jet. Eru choose to ride with Loki in his car for the lack of space in the jet.
"At least we all get to be a little closer to each other this way!" Satoshi attempted, trying to lighten the situation though he could hardly move his arms.
"Shut up," Ibara growled, highly uncomfortable next to Irisu who was in a rather irritable mood.
Satoshi sighed then heard something beep next to his head. "Message not received. Message not received," piped a little voice.
"What?" he looked around. He didn't know too much about electronics at all, being an errand boy and all, so he was confused as to what he could do. He messaged down to the car a ways behind them. "I'm hearing something that says 'message not received' any ideas?"
"Try flipping the green and blue switched opposite of each other to the left of your head. Then sync your watch to the control panel," Loki instructed. "That turns on the connection and your watch will portray the message."
Satoshi looked around, found the switches, then brought out a cable. On his watch displayed a small bag tied on either end with string.
"What's that supposed to be?" Ibara snorted. "All this fuss for that?"
"Hotarou…he's trapped!" Satoshi exclaimed.
"How do you know that?!" Ibara asked, a little surprised by Satoshi's sudden knowledge.
"There was an old samurai movie Hotaou and I watched a while back. They used something similar to this in the movie to say 'trapped like a rat,'" Satoshi explained. "He's in trouble. Do you think…?"
Irisu nodded. "It must be them."
"But they sure took their time…" Ibara added with a sigh.
"What are you talking about?" they heard Eru's voice.
"You know, the Organization," Ibara replied.
"What? Here? I thought they didn't come to Earth at all!"
"Not very often, but they can," Loki added. "There's just not much to do here…"
"But then that means we're flying straight for the trap, right?" Ibara added. "Then won't we be caught?"
"That's true," Satoshi added. "But we need to help Hotarou…"
"You guys go to the ship to see if you can do anything there, Eru and I will find Hotarou," Loki suggested.
"Our jet is faster than your car," Irisu said. "We could reach him sooner."
"True," Loki sighed. "We'll all try to find him then. Turn on the tracker; we may not have much time to find him."
Satoshi started it up, but the monitor didn't pick anything up. "We'll have to fly until we pick something up," Satoshi said. "At least we're not picking any agents ships up!"
Ibara looked at Satoshi. "How're we going to know if the ship we pick up is Oreki's?" The group looked among themselves and wondered, hoping that they wouldn't run into the agents.
Hotarou cruised until the scenery changed below him. From the pale sand, still blowing around, he began to see a deep green, telling him that he was over the jungle. The sun began to set quickly and it was almost dark. He knew the others wouldn't find him tonight; he was a good ways along the green sea, having flown alongside of it.
He decided to land for the night, praying that someone would find him before the Organization did.