“Oh, hello, you must be Blair!” Mira greeted happily as she slid into the seat to BB’s right at the meeting room table. “I heard about you from Dahye and Malena. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
BB shot her a nasty side eye from beneath her dark shades. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that. It’s ‘BB.’” She’d already been in a bad mood before hearing that name, and was now even more pissy, slumping further into her chair and aggressively mumbling, “Tch. That fuckin’ snob-ass blue-haired bitch…”
Mira gently set her hand on BB’s arm as an apology. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie, I didn’t know! I’ll be sure to just call you BB from now on.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll just punch her in the face for not tellin’ ya.”
Mira was caught quite off guard by her introduction to BB, but she knew better than to continue dwelling on the topic. Sure, she’d definitely gotten the sense that Dahye and BB weren’t exactly friends, but she hadn’t realized their relationship was apparently this tumultuous. Perhaps it was because Dahye had at least tried to keep some sense of professionalism, despite her dislike of BB? Or perhaps BB’s dislike of Dahye was just stronger than the other way around?
Whatever the reason, she turned away from BB, not wanting to risk ticking her off even more, seeking someone else for some conversation. Unfortunately for her, the only other one sitting in the meeting room at the time was Ryder wrapped in his signature hoodie and silently fiddling with his phone, whom she’d already known was not one for chatting.
But she didn’t have to suffer in the uncomfortable silence for long, as the door to the meeting room opened up a few minutes later, and in came Hiroto, greeting them all with a happy smile, even if two of the other agents didn’t bother reciprocating.
“Oh, there you are, Hiroto!” Mira said, pulling out the chair beside her and patting it, relief washing over her. “Where did you run off to?” The pair had had breakfast together that morning, though they split up for a bit before the meeting.
He plopped down into the chair. “Oh, uh, I heard a guy at the restaurant talkin’ about not bein’ able to afford a deck for his house, so I went and grabbed stuff from the hardware store and then I went and built it for him! Sorry, I didn’t mean to ditch ya, haha!”
Mira blinked in surprise. “You…built an entire deck just now?”
“Hell yeah I did!” He held up his right hand in a shaka, showing off the Red Phoenix tattoo emblazoned on the back. “It’s crazy what kinda shit you can do with these powers, haha!”
A red flame invisible to all but him flared up on the chair to his right, and then the Red Phoenix Spirit Hazird manifested, perched atop it. “Stop wasting our power on stupid shit like that. That shit ain’t infinite, dumbnuts.”
BB let out an amused little snort to herself. “Heheh. Dumbnuts.”
Hiroto clicked his tongue towards the Red Phoenix. “It ain’t stupid. Helpin’ people’s the best way to use it, yeah?”
On the other side of the table, Ryder raised a brow in Hiroto’s direction before looking over at Mira and BB. “Who’s he talking to?”
Mira could only offer a shrug, but luckily BB was able to provide an answer. “He’s got an invisible chicken with him or some shit.”
Hazird hopped off of the chair and onto the meeting table before stepping over to the space in front of BB, though no one other than Hiroto could see him do so. “What’d this broad just call me?”
“A chicken,” Hiroto responded.
“I heard her, moron, it was a rhetorical question.”
Hiroto cocked his head to the side. “Uh…a what question? I don’t think I had that class back in school.”
“‘s a question ya don’t gotta answer,” BB said, still staring vacantly at the meeting room table, at which point Hazird’s head snapped back around to face her.
“Huh? You can hear me?”
When BB didn’t respond, Hazird leaned forward and began pecking at her hair with his beak. She didn’t seem to feel any of them, which was typical whenever he tried to interact directly with people, but on the very last snap, she suddenly yelped, her head lunging forward as her hair was tugged on. “Ow! What the hell?!”
She swung her hand blindly in the space in front of her, and managed to backhand Hazird, sending him sprawling across the meeting room table in a daze. Of course, with Hazird being perpetually surrounded in flames, her own hand suffered the stinging pain of a burn wound, and she yelled again, flicking it repeatedly to relieve the ache.
Mira and Ryder were at a complete loss as to what was unfolding before them, especially as they watched Hiroto reach to the empty space above the meeting room table, grab…something?, and yank it over to the seat beside him, along with a little lecture about not being a dickhead.
Hazird let out a highly dissatisfied hiss at the sudden slamming of his body into the chair, but he did at least agree to remain in it. “Hey, kid, she heard me and even felt me for a sec there. Ask her what the deal is with th-”
Unfortunately for Hazird, he was soon interrupted as the meeting room door opened once more, and a new agent entered the room. It was Warren – a young, skinny kid wearing an oversized hoodie depicting the logo of his high school back home in Washington, D.C. that he’d graduated from last year, along with a backpack covered in all sorts of stickers ranging from kpop idol groups to anime and comic book characters.
“G-good morning, everyone,” he said, though he flinched as soon as the words left his lips.
Mira let out a knowing sigh as she checked her phone. And sure enough, though it had been a bit past 10AM a mere moment ago, it was now 12PM on the dot after Warren’s greeting. “Hello, Warren. Please be a little more careful, honey.”
“S-sorry…” he said, awkwardly bowing his head and making his way to the meeting room table. He did stop again, however, as he was unsure of where he should sit; a problem that had plagued him his entire school life. The table was fuller than it had been during any of his previously-attended meetings, so if he decided to sit isolated from everyone else like he usually did, he’d have to walk all the way around to the other side of the room, and his needless paranoia and anxiety couldn’t help but imagine the other four agents watching and judging him the entire time.
Luckily, Hiroto greeted him with a smile and pulled out the chair Hazird was in. “Hey, man, you can come sit next to me!” Before Hazird could complain, Hiroto grabbed the bird hellion and flung him to a different chair on the other side of the table, freeing up the seat.
Warren happily accepted. He’d always been a rather socially awkward loner, so it was nice to have someone actively invite him over for once. “Thanks!”
“I’m Hiroto!”
“Oh, yeah, I-I’ve heard of you, actually!”
“Oh yeah?”
Warren paused, and his brow furrowed as he stared confused at Hiroto’s face. “Um…actually, who are you? S-sorry…”
“Huh…? Uh, Hiroto. I just said that, ha.”
Mira took hold of Hiroto’s hand with a sigh. “That’s his BANE, honey. Sometimes, when Warren says things, they end up being…wrong. Even if the world has to change to make them wrong.”
Hiroto was, of course, too dumb to understand what that meant, but he seemed down to roll with it anyway. He put on another smile and pat Warren on the back. “Ah, I don’t really get it, but whatever, bro! If ya ever got problems, I’ll help ya out, aight?”
“Th-thanks…” Warren replied, though he was already retreating into his hoodie from the shame at causing two shifts with his BANE in the span of a few short minutes, no doubt pissing off the others…
Malena and Saschia arrived not long after, and the meeting formally commenced as the latter passed a file over to the former, who opened it and quickly scanned over its contents before announcing to the agents, “Well, well, it seems we’ve found two more BUBBLEs in town.”
“They’re certainly popping up more frequently, aren’t they?” Mira asked, pressing a concerned finger to her lips. “I can’t imagine that’s a good thing.”
“No, I think it is,” Malena replied, flashing her fellow MILF a smile. “More BUBBLES means more opportunities for the wonderful field agents of GLYPH to work together and help keep our world safe, no?”
BB and Ryder shared a synchronized roll of the eyes, while Hiroto shot Malena a passionate thumbs-up. Hazird, on the other hand, flew over to stand directly in front of Malena, giving himself a front-row seat to her massive tits resting on the top of the meeting table. “God, this lady is so hot…”
“Of course, with two of them appearing at the same time, we’ll unfortunately have to keep you all split up for now,” Malena continued, dividing up the documents within the folder into two piles.
“Oh!” Saschia said, bouncing up onto her tippy-toes in excitement. “We definitely can’t forget the FORMA we detected this morning either, right Mrs. Meralda?”
Malena reached out and cupped Saschia’s chin with her fingers, gently pulling her in to plant a kiss on her secretary’s cheek. “Thank you for reminding me, Saschia. You’re such a good girl.”
“Don’t sweat it, Mrs. Meralda! All in a day’s work!”
Returning her attention to the GLYPH agents, Malena continued, “Yes, as Saschia says, we’ve also detected the appearance of a FORMA, and will need to retrieve it.” She made a show of thinking over who to assign the job to, but her eyes very quickly moved to Ryder. “It’s fallen into the hands of what appears to be a street racing gang called Rojas-”
“I’ll get it,” Ryder said, standing up and stuffing his hands into his pockets before heading to the door.
“Attaboy, Ryder!” Saschia called out with an excited clap of her hands. “That’s the GLYPH go-getter attitude we love to see!”
Malena handed the two piles of documents to Saschia, who then slid them over to the two team leads for the mission – BB and, surprisingly, Hiroto.
Mira leaned over Hiroto’s shoulder to look over the papers he’d been given, while also stealing a few glances at his face as she asked aloud, “How will we be dividing the teams? Should I go with Hir-”
“Why don’t you work with BB, and Warren will accompany Hiroto?” said Malena. “I believe both of those pairings would be new for you all, and that should be a wonderful help in strengthening your bonds with each other, yes?”
While Mira was a bit disappointed, Hiroto threw his arm over Warren’s back. “Aight, cool! We got this, right, bro?” He didn’t get much other than an awkward, silent nod, though Warren certainly appreciated the sentiment.
Malena smiled at the girls’ team. “Make sure you both stop by Dr. Ingram’s office for your serum injections first. The BUBBLE you’ll be going into is a bit…dangerous.”
BB and Mira then immediately began their journey of strengthening their bond by sharing an annoyed groan.
“INJECTION!”
Mira whimpered as she felt the doctor’s big, scary syringe penetrate the skin of her upper arm. She’d never been a fan of needles, and the one big drawback to working as a field agent for GLYPH was having to take them before venturing into many of the BUBBLEs they were assigned to, as many of the worlds on the other side of them were not 100% compatible with Earthlings. The boys’ team didn’t need them for their mission, which just made her all the more upset that she hadn’t gotten paired with Hiroto again. At least she hadn’t been snuck up on and poked in the butt like BB had been, so that was…something.
“Heeheehee…!” she heard the impish Dr. Ingram giggle beside her as she slapped a bandage over the needle spot. One would think she was a child who’d managed to slip a whoopie cushion under her dad rather than a brilliant doctor issuing incredible serums with how jubilant she was about the whole affair. “Congratulations, Ms. Marsli! You are the lucky recipient of the 100th INJECTION!”
Mira gave the doctor an attempted polite smile. The joy the little devil took in her needlework hadn’t exactly meshed well with Mira’s aforementioned discomfort with the things. “Oh…how lovely. Do I get a prize?”
Dr. Ingram held her oversized-sleeve-clad arms up, and suddenly there were three absurdly-long needles protruding from each sleeve, glistening in the afternoon sunlight shining in through the windows. “Why, yes! Yes you do! A free INJECTION of your choice! What shall it be, Ms. Marsli? A temporary eye color change? Making vegetables taste like candy instead? The ability to adjust an annoying voice into something more pleasant to listen to? Or perhaps a 72-hour nullification of hair growth to save you some time with grooming?”
“Ah, goodness, such an…interesting selection. Um, I’ll think it over and get back to you on that sometime after the mission maybe, is that okay?”
The tiny little doctor frowned, but the disappointment evaporated quickly, replaced by her usual mischievous smile. “Well, suit yourself! I’m actually working on some interesting new ones, so perhaps by then I’ll have created another one more suited to your tastes?”
“I’m sure you will, Doctor…”
BB, having finished soothing the sudden sting in her buttcheek from her own injection ambush, clicked her tongue in Mira’s direction. “Oi. Let’s go and get this shit over with already. I’m the boss today.”
“Of course, dear, I’m right behind you,” Mira replied, sighing lightly as she began following BB to the elevators. Not the best start to the day’s work…
Warren was both excited and nervous as he and Hiroto stepped out from GLYPH HQ to embark on their mission to their assigned BUBBLE. He was excited because Hiroto was a lot friendlier than most of the other agents he’d worked with before; even though they had to work together, Hiroto had somehow made it felt like he’d invited him along because he genuinely wanted to.
But on the other hand, he was nervous because of Hiroto too. Hiroto was tall, buff, good with girls, and confident, and from what he’d heard, he was quite powerful out in the field, too. It generally didn’t take much for Warren’s inferiority complex to kick in, and being near someone like Hiroto was like being the ball in a soccer game.
Hiroto, imperceptive as he was, didn’t notice the nervousness, and patted the smaller boy on the back. “Hey, ready to get out there and kick some ass, bro?”
“Y-yeah, that sounds good!”
“So where we goin’?”
While Hiroto had been assigned as the team lead for the pair, he (after being mocked by Hazird) knew better than to take responsibility for the mission details, and so he’d handed the folder over to Warren, who opened it to read over the documents inside. “Uhh…Looks like it’s in Plucky Park. We can take the bus there.”
“Nah, it’s cool,” Hiroto replied, pulling down the right sleeve of his shirt to reveal a black-and-gold bracelet adorned with a fiery orange crystal implanted on it. That was the dormant form of the HYPER HAND, awaiting activation to trigger his transformation into his superhero persona. “I can fly us over there super quick!”
But before he could do so, Hazird manifested again, this time perched on his shoulder. “Just take the bus, stupid. The park ain’t far from here; you don’t gotta waste more of our power for something as pointless as this.”
Hiroto shrugged. “Aight, I guess ya got a point.”
“Um…What point? ” Warren began, raising a brow. “I didn’t say anything…?”
“Ah, sorry, I wasn’t talkin’ to you, haha! So where’s the bus stop?” Warren led the way down the block and around the corner, where the nearest stop was. Then, Hiroto asked his follow-up question, “When’s it get here?”
Warren glanced down at his phone screen. “Uhhh…five minutes.”
“Cool!”
But as soon as Warren answered Hiroto’s question, he felt a twinge of guilt as he suspected the worst – his BANE had kicked in again, and when five, ten, and then fifteen minutes passed and the bus did not arrive, he wanted to curl up into a ball and roll away.
“Huh…this bus’s takin’ awhile, huh?” Hiroto asked, looking around the street. “Wonder if it’s in trouble or somethin’?”
Hazird cocked his head around to stare at Warren, who was awkwardly fiddling with his jacket sleeve. “Nah. I think it’s the kid.”
“Huh? War ain’t a bus.”
After pecking his idiot human on the ear, Hazird said, “No, stupid, I meant he’s the reason it’s late.”
“War made the bus late? That doesn’t make sense. He’s been here the whole time.”
Warren winced at the mention of his name, and nodded slowly. “Y-yeah, I’m sorry. It’s my BANE…I forget about it sometimes…”
While GLYPH field agents were blessed with special powers known as BOONs, they also unfortunately were burdened with a BANE – a negative power or drawback of some kind. In Warren’s case, his BANE – “Wrong” – tended to make life a lot more troublesome for the boy whenever it decided to rear its ugly head. It was one of the reasons his confidence had deteriorated rapidly since awakening to his powers, as it had caused him to be unreliable and incorrect about many things at best, and a liar and accidental menace at worst.
“Meugh, what a pain in the ass,” Hazird groaned. “Tell the kid he oughta just keep his mouth shut from now on, then.”
Fortunately for Warren and his self esteem, he couldn’t hear Hazird’s words (even though they wouldn’t have been the first time he’d heard them). Hiroto didn’t bother repeating them aloud either, waving the bird hellion off and offering Warren another comforting pat on the back. “Eh, don’t worry about it, man. I’ll just fly us over there!”
Hiroto held his right hand up. The Red Phoenix tattoo on the back of his hand began to glow red and hot, lighting up the crystal on the back of his bracelet. The bracelet then expanded into a metallic golden glove around the entire hand.
With a clench of his fist, red flames spread out from Hiroto’s hand and washed over his body. The shrill scream of a bird echoed around the area as the flames shot skyward in the shape of a phoenix behind him. And after most of the flames died down, Hiroto stood clad in his HYPER HAWK bodysuit and armor, and the remaining flames coiled around his neck and fluttered in the distance like a scarf blowing in the non-existent rushing winds.
“Whoa…!” Warren gasped, nearly falling over as his body instinctively tried to avoid the flaming scarf, even if no harm would befall him from touching it. “That’s…that’s so awesome…!”
HYPER HAWK then struck a heroic pose before scooping Warren up into his arms and blasting off high into the sky like a rocket.
And all the while, watching from a bench down and across the street, were the CIPHER agents Twin and Dual.
“Fancy trick,” Dual said after the pair had watched Hiroto’s transformation and subsequent take-off into the sky. “I don’t remember seeing him the last time we fought with GLYPH.”
“He’s new. Ish,” came Twin’s response after she finished sipping her (black) coffee and returning her (black) face mask to its proper position. “And probably going to be one of the more annoying ones to deal with.”
Dual nodded, folding her muscular arms over her chest. “True. How will we handle him?”
The other CIPHER agent shrugged, flicking her (black) hair over her shoulder. “Hmph. If my love were here, he could chop Mr. Spandex in half and we’d be done with him forever, but I suppose we’ll just have to sic Trey on him for now.”
