#evil ninja

Three more hard knocks, somehow measured yet impatient. The door refused to let their knocks fall limp and hollow, like anyone else who ever knocked on the cheap flimsy piece of wood the owners called a door.

The second round of knocks broke the silence from within the house. The men heard the sound of shuffling, chairs squeaking, and the scraping noise of something solid shoved in front of the front door.

None of this seemed to impress the figures, with the one who knocked stepping aside with a disappointed sigh. "Boulder, would you mind?" Letting the tallest of them step forward.

"Of course Blizzard," He was tall and confident as he took the lead, his stance showing pride as he centered himself. Grinning at the opportunity to flaunt his strength, he knocked down the door with a fluid strike with his shoulder. Giving enough force to cause the chest to block the door to push aside as if it was an empty cardboard box. Revealing the dark interior of the home, as the curtains were drawn tight, and all lights extinguished.

“Think they left?” The Boulder grunted, taking the lead as they began to scan the seemingly empty house.

“Improbable.” The one who knocked answered, shorter than the brute in the lead but not by much. He stood ramrod straight, arms politely folded behind his back. “I didn’t register any sounds of a door, and we would have heard them slam it shut.” He pointed out as the three walked in with no qualms of disturbing the home they broke into, ruthlessly judging all aspects of every nook and cranny. They took their time as they walked casually into the living room. A few pictures of their targets decorated the bureau. The one who knocked picked one of them up, studying it as if they would reveal the location of their living counterparts.

“Let's split up. I don't want to stay in this dead zone any longer than necessary.” The shortest spoke. He was odd compared to the others. While his partners were put together and professional: he broke the all-black dress code with electric blue converse, his face always had a smirk instead of professional neutrality, and his eye not covered with an eyepatch twinkled with mischief. While one of them acted as the brain, and the other was the muscle, he was the wild card.

The other two nodded, and they separated. The biggest one went off towards the kitchen, the one who knocked stayed in the living room to look for clues, and the odd one started towards the bedroom.

Walking into the bedroom, he scanned the simple room for signs of life. Two simple beds were pushed into the corners of the room, from the clothes laid out and thrown about. One could guess that either the residents weren't very neat, or they caught them off guard like planned. His footsteps tapped as he slowly approached the beds. Crouching down he looked beneath them, and nothing. All he saw was a few boxes used for storage, a few crumbs for the rats, and a pair of shoes under one, with only one shoe under the other bed.

"Gonna be hard to run with only one shoe," He muttered, standing up. Humming in frustration, as there seemed to be no other place for them to hide. "Where are you?"

A crash from the other room drew his focus. Sprinting to the kitchen where it came from, he arrived just as his partner was cuffing one of their targets. He was shouting and struggling as hard as he could even though Boulder had a solid 50 pounds on him. He wasn't going anywhere.

Blizzard turned to him, unfazed by the struggle on the floor. "Did you find the girl, Storm?"

The other partner shook his head, looking at the boy, and noticed he only had one shoe on. "But she’s not wearing shoes. She couldn't have gone far."

"Hmm, possibly," he muttered, kneeling to the pinned target to look him in the eyes. "Where's the girl?" The captured target clapped his mouth shut, refusing to speak.

Boulder, who was pinning him down, put more pressure on him, "Answer the question."

"Hey, you two, take a step back." Storm one said, motioning for the others to pull back. He got close up in his target's face, his smirk widening to a smile.

"Now, you two have been running for a while, and it's finally over. We know you two have a real strong bond, and I know you're also going to miss her if we leave her behind. Besides," he said, his voice lowering to a more serious tone. "She's just a kid. Do you think she can take care of herself? All alone? Being hunted like a runaway dog?" His voice dropped again to a dangerous whisper, pushing his face even closer. "So save everyone the hassle and your baby sister the trauma, Kai. Where. Is. She?"

The target scowled at his words, refusing to give him any reaction besides seething anger. "Fuck off."

Storm's smirk fell into a scowl, unwilling to move till he got an answer. The hair on the back of everyone's neck stood up as the air became charged. He watched Kai squirm in discomfort as the air around him began to crackle menacingly around him.

"Storm! You're not going to get any grace from the director if the target is unnecessarily injured." Blizzard chastized, the static in the air dissipating at his words.

Storm stood slowly, "Fine," he snapped, stepping away from the boy. "Besides, I don't need to touch a hair on his head to get what we need." He muttered darkly, the other two sharing a glance as they watched Storm walk over to the window grasping the heavy curtain. "Since she's obviously not here, let us make sure she doesn't have anywhere to return to," And with a flash of lightning, he set the fabric on fire. Turning back to look at the boy's face, watching the sudden panic on his poor face. His eye's glancing at the floor beneath the couch with fear. Just a glance, but it was more than enough for Storm.

Walking to the couch he pushed it aside, inspecting the floor it appeared to be slightly off. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" He stood up and drove his heel into the floor, giving it two hard strikes, causing the floorboards to break and reveal the cavity beneath with a cloud of dust and debris.

He heard Kai start struggling again, throwing insults at him in an attempt to distract him from the hidden bunker. He paid no attention squinting through the dust, expecting to see a scared girl. But there was nothing, blinking he jumped into the hole.

"It's a tunnel! Blast! We may be able to catch her if we-

"Storm." Boulder interrupted with a growl, "She's long gone by now. The director wanted the boy; the girl was just a bonus. She's got no place to go," He gruffed referencing the fire which has spread to the walls, manageable now but it quickly gets out of hand. "I'll send agents to pick her up later." He gruffed as he picked up the squirming captive, a hood now over his head.

"But-"

"Storm. Boulder is right. We got what we came here for. No matter whatever you feel like you have to prove, we are done here." Blizzard said as he turned on his heel and walked out.

Grumbling Strom relinquished and jumped out of the hole. Watching his handiwork as now the home was quickly falling to the fire he started. His signature smirk was nowhere to be seen as he followed his partners out the door.