Two Hours Ago...
Aster stood on the roof a small office block, his gaze fixated on a patrol guard making his rounds for a warehouse across the street. It was his third time in the last hour that he'd strolled past the main security hut, nodding to the other security guard inside and then casually walking off again to check on another part of the premises. Now would be the best time to strike if he wanted to get inside without raising any alarms.
The warehouse in question belonged to a wealthy business magnate, one that had enough money to hire out a private security firm to protect his properties. This man had spared no expenses; A Closed-Circuit Television System, Armed Guards and a top-of-the-line Intruder Alarm System, no wonder the Gambino Family had hired him for the job. After all, he did have a knack for getting things done and his success rate was currently unblemished. Whilst this was a good thing, Aster tried to keep himself low key when it came to dealing with the Family. He often took on jobs from them through a middle-man by the name of Bobby Beans, an associate of the Mafia who was their 'go-to' guy in L.A.. This kept Aster's name away from the attention of the real members. The Soldiers, the Made-Men, his Father. To them he was just a guy who got the job done, took his pay and went silent until he was called upon next.
Aster wrangled his thoughts back to the now, re-focusing on the security hut. He held out his right hand and concentrated. A small light began to emit from the center of his palm, gradually growing bigger the more he concentrated on it. It was pure light and as the orb of light matched the size of a tennis ball, it began to protrude out at the top and bottom. The protrusions grew longer at a quickened rate until eventually the light dimmed somewhat and his hand began to grasp around the lance he had just created. It felt smooth to touch, like always, and looked similar to frosted glass but with an ebbing glow trapped inside. He knew he only had a limited amount of time to act now, before he was spotted.
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This was Jeremiah's third night shift of the week and he was about ready to quit. The boss had given him this shift because he'd been caught stealing Bob's Twinkies from the fridge in the canteen last week. 'If Bob wasn't such a fat ass, he wouldn't need to keep Twinkies at work.' He thought. 'I just have two shifts left. Just two, I can do this.' It was then that he noticed a flash of light through the large pane of glass that was the main window of the security hut. His attention was drawn to a dark figure standing on top of the building across the street. Jeremiah screwed up his face in confusion.
"What the he-" It was all he could manage before the second flash killed him instantly.
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"And the Lord said..." Aster said to himself, a smirk playing at his lips. In his right hand, he no longer held the lance made of light. By now the spear-like weapon had already pierced his target and was beginning to shatter and fade away. He had to move quickly. Stepping forward to the edge of the building, Aster looked down. It was a 6-storey drop, a fall that would certainly kill him. But he allowed himself to lurch forward nonetheless, diving toward the ground at an increasingly fast rate. The rush of adrenaline made him feel alive as he fell and a slight feeling of dread played at his thoughts.
Before it could take over him completely, Aster had begun to convert his own body into light before a quick flash made him disappear completely. He stood, unharmed, inside the security hut. He had to wait for his body to adjust. Freefalling to your death and then teleporting to a completely different place had a way of confusing your senses. But it didn't take him long to recover. There was a large pool of blood covering part of the floor within the hut. It came from the guard, who still sat in his chair. Except now he was dead and left with a gaping hole in his chest.
As he stepped over the puddle of crimson liquid, her could hear hurried footsteps coming from outside. One of the guards, something must have gone wrong. Aster stood, frozen, if he moved now, he'd alert the guard before he had a chance to jump him. Within seconds the security guard burst through the door to the hut. "Why won't you answer-" Aster had already moved towards the door. Before the man could raise his rifle to shoot, he grabbed the barrel of the gun with his left hand and used his ability to convert it into Hard-Light, then ripped the weapon from the man's grip, pulling him further into the hut.
As the guard was pulled off balance, Aster struck him with a swift right-elbow to the side of the head, dazing him and sending the defenceless man sprawling against the command console. The guard managed to recover, however and threw himself toward the Meta, but Aster only batted him away with the gun, before discarding it and following up with a right hook to his ribs. The guard cried out in pain, a few broken ribs will do that to you, but Aster didn't let up. He grabbed the side of man's face with his right hand and began to slam his head against the console repeatedly until the sound of glass breaking and a flashing red light meant that he'd activated the emergency alarm.
He released the guard's mutilated head, allowing the man's lifeless body to crumple to the ground, and sighed. "This is gonna' be a long night..."
Present Time
Aster turned his Camaro into to a widened alleyway that was situated between a mix of apartment blocks and office towers. The further he drove, the darker and dingier it got. He kept going until, in his head beams, he could see another car with a man standing beside it. Turning off the engine, he opened the door and stepped out of the car. He then began to walk towards the man who, by now, had noticed his arrival and had turned to face him. "You fucked up, A.J!" The man called out as Aster kept walking.
"The hell are you talkin' about? I got the package." He replied, slightly raising the small brown item he'd grabbed off of the passenger seat as he left the car.
"Yeah, and now the whole damn city knows you did too. You left a fuckin' body count for Christ's sake!"
"Oh, c'mon, they were a couple of private security guards, what do you care?" Aster now stood facing the man.
"What do I care? I read the damn Police Report."
"Police Report? How did you-Wait a minute, you had a fuckin' tail on me?!" Aster suddenly grew annoyed and began to clench his fist.
"The guy had a fuckin' hole in his chest, like he'd been speared! What the fuck kind of shit is that?!"
"Why the fuck would you put a tail on me, Bobby?"
"Because apparently, you're not quite who you say you are. Our guy said that you jumped from a six-storey building and then just randomly ended up in the security hut! Is that true, A.J?"
"Now you just shut your mouth, Bobby, you don't know what you're saying.
"Are you a fuckin' Meta?"
At that point, Aster lost it. He dropped the package and grabbed Bobby with both hands by the lapels of his coat, then turned and slammed him up against the brick wall that made up the side of the alley. "I told you to shut your fuckin' mouth, Bobby. You didn't hear nothin' about anythin' and as far as you or anyone else is concerned, I'm just the guy who gets shit done!" After he'd said his piece he let Bobby go, straightening out his coat before turning away from his old friend.
"Yeah, well that's just the problem, Jay."
Aster turned his head to look over his shoulder. "What do you mean?" He asked, almost glaring.
Bobby began to stutter, trying to get the words out before finally taking a breath and just saying it. "There's a new Capo in town. He flew in from New York last week."
Aster turned around at that. "Go on."
"Well, he wanted to personally go over the books himself. Usually that's for the accountants to do, but this guy likes to see shit with his own eyes. And whilst going through them, he spotted a bunch of payments for this year. Each of them for ten grand. They were your payments, A.J. And he wanted to know why they hadn't been signed."
"What do you mean?" He was confused slightly and furrowed his brow as he asked.
"Well, you've always wanted to keep your identity a secret, so I never signed the payments with your name. Which we usually do so we'd know who they were going to. I mean, everybody here knows who you are but they're all content for me to just say it's for 'a guy I know', I even got me my own name; Bobby 'I know a guy' Bea-"
"Get to the fuckin' point, Bobby."
"Okay, so that didn't wash with this guy. He said that he wants to meet. To see you with his own eyes."
"Are you fuckin' kidding me?!" This wasn't good. There was no way he could meet him. What if it was his Father, or someone that knew his Father...and his son for that matter? "No. No, we're fuckin' done. Don't call me again, Bobby." He began storming back to his car.
"A.J. wait! They'll kill me if you don't show! You know how bad this looks already! You can't just hang me out to dry here!" Aster stopped walking but stayed silent for at least a minute.
"What time's the meet?" He asked eventually.
"Tomorrow night, eight o'clock. The usual place."
"Shit." He said. "I'm not happy about this, Bobby." Aster continued walking back to his car.
"Yeah, well this isn't exactly my idea of Christmas either, A.J!"
Aster sat back in the driving seat of his car and watched Bobby drive off in the other direction. When the lights from his sedan had gone, he slammed a fist on the dashboard. "Fuck it!" He said aloud. This was going to be a long night.