Chapter 7

A few months after the mysterious bird was taken away from him, Agent 12 was assigned an equally mysterious mission. What was weird about it was that he was going alone. Normally, there was a group of two or three, even on a mission to get a small bit of information. What’s more: they wouldn’t let Wilson come. Wilson always went on missions with Agent 12. That’s just how it was. But this time, they insisted, and Agent 12 didn’t want to be kicked out of S.W.O.R.D., if he was, he would become that runaway being chased by the government again, so he listened to them. But one thing that Agent 12 was well known for was finding loopholes. After weeks of research, he located quite a few birds that could deem useful in relaying information to Wilson. If that didn’t work, Wilson would stalk by him in the vicinity (and in appropriate form).

Agent 12 received the case file for the mission right away, and looked over it quickly. It didn’t say much other than what he already knew about the case. He got his swords and a pack for food (just in case he got hungry). Lastly, a device that could hack into computer systems. This would help him get the information, which he wasn’t supposed to see (of course, he would look anyway). Speaking loud enough for a legitimate eavesdropper to hear, Agent 12 bid Wilson “goodbye”.

“You know I can’t take you, right?”

“Right. Maybe I’ll just sleep while you’re gone. But leave the window open,” Wilson replied in French.

“Okay,” Agent 12 said, translating to English. “Take care of yourself.” He patted Wilson’s metal-like scales, creating an echoing ting ting in contact with Agent 12’s magnetized gloves. Then he vaulted out the window, twisting and grabbing the drain pipe. Agent 12 slid the rest of the five stories down on the pipe like a fireman would a pole. He met a black helicopter at the main entrance.

As the heli fwipped off, Wilson padded softly over to the window. He rested his huge cat paws on the sill and watched Agent 12 and the others in the helicopter fly off. “Veniam ad vos cito, come soon,” Wilson murmured in his original tongue. Then, glancing over his shoulder to see if no one was looking, Wilson morphed into an osprey, and flew off with the heli.

They arrived at the main I.I.E.M. base a few minutes later. It was a cloudy day, so the heli was concealed as Agent 12 jumped out with a parachute and his swords strapped to his back. He landed in a sycamore tree a few blocks away. When he stalked to the main entrance, there was a very peculiar brawl going on at the main entrance. A hero that looked a little younger than Agent 12 was surrounded by a throng of villains that could be percepted as a swarm of bees from a distance. Agent 12 darted across the concrete plaza and in a back door just as the hero was swallowed by the bee-swarm of people.

The door made too loud of a chak closed for Agent 12 to appreciate, but no one rushed to confront him, fortunately. He knew where the room was. When he got there, he locked the door hastily and threw open the window. In sailed an osprey. Agent 12 greeted Wilson with an open glove and a small piece of fish. “Let’s look at those files,” Wilson said cheerfully.

Agent 12 and Wilson (disguised as a lizard) scoured the room for a hard drive. The file said that the most important documents for the I.I.E.M. were stored in this room on a hard drive. After a few minutes of searching in vain, a small Japanese voice called out from a cupboard. “Mitsuketa! I found it!” Agent 12 rushed over, not before putting the room back in proper order, and hooked the device up to the hard drive. After all the files had loaded, Agent 12 hooked up his own device. After setting the drive back in its original spot, and cleaning up the room, they were done. Agent 12 was about to crawl out the window when there was an abrupt knock at the door. “Who’s in there?” a gruff voice said, muffled by the door.

Agent 12 motioned to Wilson, putting a finger to his lips, and quietly loaded a magazine into his 9mm caliber. Wilson morphed to a cat. Then, with nimble fingers, Agent 12 unlocked the door.

Two guards flung the door wide open, only to find a cat lying contentedly on the floor, absent-mindedly giving itself a bath. “How did you get in here?” one of the guards growled. The other murmured into his walkie-talkie. Agent 12 watched this from behind the door. He surveyed the guards. They had walkie-talkies, small arms Agent 12 guessed to be stun guns �" the barrels were quite small �" and small necklaces Agent 12 knew to be PDn’s, or Power Deactivation necklaces.

The door suddenly slammed behind the guards, and they whipped around, finding a lean teenager that looked to be from S.W.O.R.D. holding a handgun, barrel pointed at their heads. “Drop your weapons and deactivate your radios,” he said slowly. The guards exchanged careful glances, then pulled their stun guns off their belts and slid them towards Agent 12. One guard smoothly pulled a device from his pocket as Agent 12 picked up the weapons. Pointing to it, he said, “Deactivates the radios.”

But as the guard pressed the button, the stun guns crackled with electricity and Agent 12, shocked, lost his grip on them. “MANJE!” Agent 12 roared as the guards dove for their weapons. “NOW!”

The guards expected several S.W.O.R.D. officials to come barging in through the door or the open window when they turned, but instead they saw a griffin; neon eyes narrowed to slits, head feathers fluffed every which way, standing up on hind legs with wings outstretched, tail lashing. Wilson let out a huge roar that almost made one guard cry. Agent 12 hopped over them when they came tumbling to the ground with the massive griffin on top of them. He landed in the distinct part of Wilson’s back that he always sat on when Wilson flew. Grabbing hold of a spike, Agent 12 motioned for the huge snake-bird to get moving, and scales rippled as Wilson crashed through the door.

They had completed their mission. The exit wasn’t far off. But just as Wilson was going to ram the doors, something hard rammed into both of them, sending Wilson into the wall and Agent 12 bailing to the side. Agent 12 never hit the ground, though. He was pulled up onto the wall, and in alarm he could feel a hand grasping at his neck. Agent 12 tried to claw at something to get the hand off of him, but he realized he was grasping empty space. With all his will, Agent 12 looked down.

A figure with a mask stood in front of him, hand outstretched. His skin was mostly concealed under a dark cloak that seemed to move and churn, and from the slightest move it looked like it would overflow. The figure’s hand and visible arm were a ghostly white, with discolored spots and scars that boosted the eeriness of the figure. Under the mask, Agent 12 could’ve sworn he saw green lights that replaced the figure’s eyes. He shuddered at the thought of it.

The figure laughed �" a cracked, high-pitched whine not much far from the evil laughs you would hear in the movies �" at the sight of Agent 12’s struggle. The invisible hand gripped tighter. Then suddenly, just as quickly as it had started, the invisible grip abruptly stopped, and Agent 12 fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Wilson seemed to be in the same predicament, for when Agent 12 reached him, he was wheezing. The figure had passed out, falling into the hands of… guards? Several guards had rushed in hearing the commotion, and some had managed to catch the figure before he fell to the floor. Agent 12 and Wilson were met with guns and spears and other absurd weapons when they attempted to sneak out the door.

After being handcuffed and PDn’s clipped on, Agent 12 and Wilson (in cat form) were marched to a holding cell. During the whole shenanigan, they were both relaying messages to each other, until the PDn’s were clipped on. Just as they were shoved into the cell, Agent 12 motioned to Wilson and Wilson whipped around and pounced on the nearest guard, taking him by surprise. Agent 12 ripped his PDn off and punched another guard in the face, retrieving his swords and nimbly cutting the other PDn off of Wilson’s neck.

After Agent 12 had knocked out all the guards, he vaulted onto Wilson’s back and they burst out the door. When they had reached the safety of the bushes, Wilson flew off as an osprey and Agent 12 reput the tracking device on himself that S.W.O.R.D. hadn’t told him about. He strode back to the helicopter waiting for him and climbed up the rope.

Back at S.W.O.R.D., Agent 12 weaved through a crowd of people that were swarming toward the helipad for some reason. In the chaos, Agent 12 rammed into someone. It was that hero he had seen fighting against the swarm of villain-bees, except there were rips in her clothing and debris and broken glass on her chestplate. She was also handcuffed for some reason. Both were knocked to the ground from the impact. “Umm, sorry about that,” Agent 12 mumbled as he hopped to his feet. The hero was still trying to use momentum to get up. Agent 12 offered out his hand. “Need any help?”

The hero’s eyes flashed with independence, but grabbed his hand anyway. Her grip was so strong Agent 12 winced as he pulled her up. When he pulled the hero up, he realized she wasn’t much shorter than him. But there was something else… something so familiar but Agent 12 couldn’t place his finger on it…

“Sorry.” Agent 12 shook his head. “Thought you were someone else.” Then he rushed through the crowd, down a flight of stairs, and to his dorm.