Derick W J Tan

“Wait in the taxi,” he told Tae Yeon the moment he stepped out.

“What? How can I wait in the taxi–“

“–Just wait in the taxi,” he said again as he pushed her towards the open door.

“No!” she shouted. “I’m not letting–“

“–Just trust me,” Ixion said with a tone that had neither anger nor plea but had a touch of maturity and authority that made her silent and listen. “I’ll get Tiffany but I need you to help look after Soo Young.”

Tae Yeon hesitated but something told her that she could trust him. Perhaps it was how he always managed to find his way around places even when he’s alone, or how after knowing him for so many years that he had never once walked into a wall or knocked over something by accident. She didn’t understand why but she knew that there was a lot more to Ixy than meets the eye. What more, exactly, she didn’t know.

All she knew now was that she could trust him to get Tiffany back safely.

So she got into the taxi and watched as he closed the door and knocked on the driver’s window to tell the man to start driving again. He stood waiting outside the gate, seemingly watching them until the taxi drove around a corner, out of sight.

And now on to the agenda.

Ixion walked up to the gate and rang the bell three times before a voice came through the speaker.

“Hi, my name is Elijah Shin.” His voice was calm and composed – his usual voice in other words. “I’m going to ask you a question now and you will answer truthfully or you’re going be very regretful. It is a simple and straight forward, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question.” He paused to let his instructions be comprehended by whoever he was speaking to. “ Now, is there a singer by the name of Tiffany Hwang in there?”

“Go to hell,” the guy said and then switched off the speaker.

Ixion sighed, disappointed. “Your funeral.”

With a will of his mind, Ixion tore the gate’s hinges from the wall before sending the gate itself flying inwards, crumpling the barricade into what resembled most to a paper ball. When the alarm system started going off, he raised a hand and thrust it at the alarm console to aid his mind in directing a violent force from his mental touch ripping through the entire system’s setup – wires, cables, everything – obliterating the entire system before the authorities could be notified.

Then he entered.

The steel ball that went ahead earlier returned to him once he stepped onto the front yard, greeted with curious stares from the people partying, most of them either drunk or high – some were both. He listened to what the steel ball had to tell him before he returned it to his cane. It was going to be another painful month for him to reattach that tiny portion of his mind.

No one cared enough to stop him at first until a guy, whose arm was painted with tattoos and ears pierced with large, unattractive earrings – unlike his which were small and made him look that much more sophisticated – came charging at him with a metal baseball bat, yelling vulgarities all over the place about the gate. The hooligan boy raised the bat over his head and screamed as he brought it down on–

–Ixion seized him by the neck.

The bat fell from his hands instantly as the boy struggled to breath.

“Move please,” he said most politely, telling a group of teenagers to move away from the bar.

With a gust of wind aiding him, Ixion sent the guy flying through the air and crashing behind the bar, shattering hundreds of dollars worth of vodkas and martinis along with glasses that were likely to be just as expensive.

Now, no one was brave enough to stop him.

He proceeded into the house.

“My apologies for the disruption but did anyone happen to see Tiffany Hwang?” he announced the enquiry to all. “There a good chance she had a bunch of sex-deprived dogs panting around her.”

The people here were too intoxicated to even notice him, while those who weren’t simply ignored him, except for one guy with a cigarette in his hand.

“She’s upstairs. Shin Ju and his gang are up there with her too.” The guy looked at his watch. “By now, they’re probably on their third round screw–“

“–Thank you.” He stopped him there, not wanting to rinse off the image from his brain with soap later.

The steel ball bearing he sent earlier had already mapped out the entire house, so he made his way straight to the stairs on the east wall, pushing a couple away before he began his climb. Once on the second level, he sent forth another gust of wind and found the room he was looking for to be the second one on the left.

He stepped in front of the door and knocked, hearing only moaning and groans from inside.

As what he had done with the gate earlier he did to this door in front of him. He first gathered air into the gaps in the hinges and then released it all at once, breaking the hinges with a violent burst of air and the door fell over flat on the ground. He stepped into the room and emitted a ripple which told him more or less exactly what he had expected to see.

Tiffany was laying on the bed, unconscious.

And a bunch of guys scattered all over the floor, moaning and groaning – in pain.

All six of them either had: a) A bleeding nose, b) A bleeding ear with missing earrings, c) A sore bump on their head, d) Broken teeth, e) A sore abdomen, f) A painful groin, or g) All of the above.

Ixion let out a huge breath of relief because as confident as he was, it was still his job to worry about Tiffany, and walked over to the girl before he patted her flushed cheek to rouse her from her nap. Tiffany’s fisted hands came flying first which he grabbed at once, and then he lifted his leg to guard his lineage from her thrusting knees.

So Tiffany head butted him on the forehead.

“Jesus–“ It was rude to swear out loud so the rest he yelled in his head.

“Go away,” she mumbled sleepily before raising a fist. “Or I’ll punch you in the face…”

“It’s me you silly mushroom,” said Ixion, still can’t believe how painful that head butt was.

Tiffany’s eyes fluttered open.

“Ixy?” She blinked and looked again with that drunk – but cute – look on her face. “Ixy! Pretty, pretty Ixy… What are you doing here…?”

He mumbled something about Tiffany being “cute but freaking deadly” before he leaned into her face and flicked her on the forehead, hearing the cutest “ouch!” in return.

“To bring my drunk little mushroom home of course,” he told her, ignoring a commotion downstairs. “Come on.”

Tiffany raised both her arms. “Mmm… Piggy-back!”

“You don’t look that drunk.”

“Piggy-back!” She started flailing her legs like a spoiled child. “Piggy-back! Piggy-back! Piggy–”

“–Fine.” He gave in and lifted her up on his back. “Christ, you’ve gained weight.”

She smacked him on the head. “I heard that!”

Just as he was considering to drop her, he heard two girls yelling her name and seconds later, Yuri and Jessica came bursting in.

“Fany ah!” Jessica yelled and ran up to her, touching her face to see if she was all right. “Oh my god, are you all right? You silly girl, why did you get yourself so drunk?”

Tiffany blinked and stretched out her head to look at her. “Jess…? Jess! Hi, Jess… Hee… You’re so pretty… I like your hair…”

She reached out and started twirling Jessica’s hair with her finger.

“You stupid girl, did you know how worried we were?” Yuri yelled at her, following Ixion as he continued making his way out.

Tiffany frowned when she saw Yuri.

“Go away… Jessica is mine! Tiffany’s! No YulSic… JeNy forever!”

Tiffany and Tae Yeon’s duo name was ‘TaeNy’ – a combination of their names – so it was their little game to ‘pair’ each other up from time to time.

Yuri knocked Tiffany really hard on the head in return for saying that and the drunken girl started to cry. And it wasn’t ‘pretend’ crying, she really started crying.

“Ah, Yuri ah, you hit her too hard!” said Jessica, rubbing Tiffany on the head as she consoled her.

“She wanted to break us up!”

“Just indulge her, she’s drunk,” Jessica said and then smiled sweetly at Yuri. “You know best that no one can ever break us up.”

They both joined hands and–

“–People, can we try and focus on the situation here,” Ixion reminded them.

He had nearly tripped over a pair of legs in the corridor, not remembering someone laying there before.

“Oppa, be careful,” said Yuri, now holding his arm as she led him down the stairs. “There are a bunch of bodies on the stairs and on the way out.”

When Ixion had first entered, the first level was filled with noisy teenagers busy drinking and making out with one another. When Ixion left, after Yuri and Jessica came, the first level had only guys laying all over the place moaning in pain and girls huddled in a corner scared for their life. Head shaking, Ixion began sending large pulse waves throughout the entire house, searching for every single hand phone or devices with camera functions and destroyed them.

He wasn’t going to let Tiffany’s dream and career be ruined by a momentary lack of judgement.

“This,” Ixion said as tiny electrical sparks went off all around them, “is a fair example of what it means to ‘go overboard’.”

“We were too worried about Tippany to care!” Yuri protested. “Plus, we didn’t know where she was and who bullied her so…”

“You took out every poor fool that happened to just stumble into your view.”

“No!” said Yuri, then she paused for a second. “Well, yeah…”

Ixion sighed as he went out the gate. “The both of you may be TFA agents, but it doesn’t mean you can go around beating the crap out of people like this. Your duty is to gain control and provide internal intelligence to your superiors during emergency situations. And there’s a reason why you’re called ‘secret agents’ you know?”

If you’ve already forgotten or simply don’t know, TFA – the acronym for Teenage Federal Agency – is an international secret agency that recruits and trains youths all from over the world, who shows exceptional potential in both academics and athletics, to become unofficial federal agents. They played quite an integral role during the series of school hostage situations a year ago in Japan.

But that’s a story already told in Specimen One.

“Ah, don’t start nagging like Gordon,” Jessica said, remembering how incessant that blonde-haired man was during their days as trainees. “Oh, and speaking of Gordon, you better not tell him what we did back there!”

“Or what? I’m one of the four specimens which makes me automatically  your superior. What can you possibly do to- ow, ow!” Jessica seized him by the ear. “Let go- OW, OW! Argh, YAH! Jessica Jung Soo Yeon, I am not kiddin- shit! OW, OW!”

“Say ‘sorry, noona’, (Say ‘sorry, big sister’,)” Jessica ordered him, twisting his ear until it began to redden. “Say it!”

Ixion held firm for a few seconds longer but it was unbearable.

“Ah, noona, mianhe, mianhe! (Ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, big sister!)”

Pleased, Jessica gave his ear one last tug before she released him and patted him on the head.

“Good boy,” she said with a bright smile.

You’d be begging for mercy too if Jessica got her death grip on your puny little ears.

- Chapter 17 (The Truth)