When they arrive at the cafe, it is closing time. There are no customers showing through the windows, which is a good thing, seeing as the two boys have already received plenty of weird looks for walking around without an adult escort.

Spoke stops Parrot from bumping into the glass door a third time in the same day, the avian blinking in confusion before he remembers that the cafe actually has a door and it isn't just an empty entrance. They rush inside, desperately looking over the counter to find someone. Even a barista cleaning dishes would suffice! Instead of a cafe worker, however, they find someone else.

The school's cleaning lady is casually sweeping dust between the tables. They both freeze like deer caught in headlights when they see her and stare for a moment, until the woman notices them as well.

"What are you two doing out so late?" she asks with curiosity that could rival a cat's.

The two of them look at each other.

"What are you doing here?" Spoke asks, and, yeah, that's a good question, actually.

"Me?" the cleaning lady says with too many teeth in her smile. That's the normal smile they receive each time she comes to watch a game of theirs in the yard, though, so it isn't as unnerving as it once was. "I'm cleaning!"

Spoke doesn't appear satisfied.

"How– Why are you everywhere?", he continues, sounding perplexed beyond the limits of confusion. Parrot gives him a questioning look at that– everywhere? He has only seen Miss Pearl at school and presumed she only worked there. Whatever! He'll ponder on this later!

"I work everywhere," she says proudly. That– makes sense, Parrot supposes. Then, the look in her eyes goes straight back to curiosity. "But you are supposed to be in bed at this time."

Before Spoke can ask another question about her job, Parrot cuts in, tugging his friend back by the back of his shirt. He shifts his wings, puffing up the plumes in an attempt to appear bigger and stronger than he actually is like a threatened bird. Pearl puts a hand to her hip, leaning against the broom in her other hand with the rise of an unimpressed eyebrow and Parrot drops the tough act.

"We're looking for... 'Suma", that is precisely the second time he's uttered the man's name. He still has no idea how to pronounce it correctly but Xisuma didn't correct him the first time so he may as well continue with the 'short' version.

"Xisuma?", she asks to clarify and Parrot nods. Spoke waits patiently at his side, hands shoved in the pockets of his pants. "He isn't at home?"

"He said he'd be late," Parrot shrugs in a way to show that he is totally indifferent and totally not panicking under the facade of "calm and collected" that he has donned. Spoke steps just a little closer to him, nudging his side with his elbow. The avian leans into him only a tiny bit and he will fight whoever says otherwise. "But he hasn't returned."

The face Pearl pulls is one that has them both at the edge of anticipation. Her brows scrunch together, mouth pulling into a frown.

"He's probably at the supermarket. I'll walk you two home and wait for him with you if you'd like."

Supermarket. Right. Maybe that's true but Parrot can't recall a time during the week when the man spent more than an hour buying groceries.

"When did he leave?" he asks instead of answering, trying to sound serious, like a detective he's seen on a TV show.

"I–" Pearl pauses for a second. "I don't know, I just got here."

That's... worrying, to say the least. For an adult to go missing like this? Adults go missing for strict reasons and Parrot only hopes that he hasn't been abandoned again.

Maybe it's a bit selfish to think that way. There are numerous reasons for an adult to go missing in this city, one worse than the next, yet Parrot can't bring himself to feel guilty over his own thoughts. Xisuma promised to stay with him (under gunpoint but who cares about that tiny detail?) and Parrot wants to hold him to it.

He is done with being pushed aside and if Xisuma has truly abandoned him, Parrot will find him. He will find him and then he will– He doesn't know what he'll do just yet but he has a creative mind and a gun; he'll figure it out if it comes down to it.

"You should go back home, though," Pearl repeats. "It's pretty late for you two to be wandering around alone."

Parrot shakes his head before he speaks. "No."

"No?"

He shakes his head again. "We're going to look for him." and that is a solid decision. Spoke doesn't protest, having already agreed to escort Parrot to the cafe; he looks quite enthusiastic for a bit more adventuring.

The cleaning lady, however, disagrees. "It's late, mate. Let's sleep tonight and we can look for him tomorrow."

That has both of them looking at the woman with wide, disbelieving eyes. They knew that Pearl enjoyed their company and tolerated their filthy mouths in the yard but to go to such lengths for them? Parrot certainly did not expect that –Spoke even less so. There is probably a reason as to why she's offering in the first place; there has to be. No one does something this big if they have nothing to gain from it.

"What's the deal?", Spoke speaks up sharply. The woman blinks at him like he's grown a second head.

"What deal?"

"The deal ." She purses her lips into a line, her shoulders stiffen like she has just realized something. Neither of the boys know what that could be.

"There is no deal; I'm just helping you."

Parrot doesn't know if he should trust her words in this context but he also doesn't have much time to decide. The more, the merrier, as the saying goes. If there are more people, there will be more ground covered and quicker than the two of them could manage on their own. Needless to say that there is a technical advantage to having another flying person on their team.

Plus, if this service is free, then they can take it. Probably.

"Okay. Fine." he says in as even a voice as he can. Pearl looks appeased.

They all spend the night at Xisuma's house. Pearl stays up throughout the night, keeping an eye on the children, who have curled up under the blankets of Parrot's bed.

Parrot skips breakfast, rushing out the door with his readied school bag on his shoulders. Spoke is right behind him, not questioning where they're going and Pearl stands confused before she, too, follows.

"I'll take the east side. Stay safe, boys!"

With that, she's off, wings fluttering with huffs of air and the light reflecting off her wings in majestic flecks of colour.

"Where do we start?" Spoke asks after a moment. Admittedly, Parrot hadn't thought that far. He shrugs.

"We could ask around first, I'm sure someone has seen him."

"Yeah, he is pretty hard to miss with that armor."

So, they make the rounds through the blocks close to the café. No one has seen Xisuma, at least out of the locals, since yesterday's shift. Not in the street, not in the shop, not even in the supermarket that's down the road. They continue to search, however, going off of dead-end leads and pure stubbornness on Parrot's part.

Until they bump into Reddoons...

While being only a few years older than the two of them, this guy has some serious information; so serious that some would torture him for intel despite his age. Being part of a gang and having his connections with the city's higher, dubiously-legal powers, he knows perhaps too much about everything.

"Uh, if I tell you, you didn't hear anything from me, got it?"

Parrot waves him off but reassures him that his mouth shall stay shut anyway. There is no reason to get on Reddoons' bad side when they've just called a truce.

"I heard there is an auction happenin' at midnight in the westernmost warehouse on the docks. There are some rumors that there is a voidwalker in the lots."

Apparently, Xisuma was kidnapped. He didn't abandon Parrot, which is a plus, but he also isn't immediately available, which is a minus. How would they even break into a warehouse?

"You didn't hear it from me."

They leave after that. Spoke slips into Parrot's shadow with ease before the boy takes off into the midday sky.

The option to call the police would surely dunk them in a pool of issues; interrogations and such. The public phones haven't worked in a decade, so making an anonymous call is out of the question and attracting attention is the last thing that either of them need.

Parrot lands before he passes the fence that separates the docks from the rest of the city. Sure, he could technically waltz right in but he's about to steal from the auctioneers; something that is incredibly valuable. Not a smart thing to be seen. Spoke dispatches himself without another word, hopping from shadow to shadow with little issue, until he's lost from the avian's eyes.

From where Parrot stands, he can already see a dozen men in black suits and sunglasses standing guard in front of some metal crates and a few more patrolling the perimeter of the warehouse. The security will most certainly be doubled during the auction.

...This isn't good.

They'll need a distraction and a big one at that.

The iron links dig into Parrot's fingers as he pushes against it lightly, gripping nervously as he tries to spot Spoke in the shadows. The last thing they need is for one of them to get caught and Spoke being in there– before he thought about it, Parrot was fine. Now, he isn't, eyes flicking between the crates and the warehouse.

"Boo!"

Twirling around, Parrot smacks Spoke with a wing. It's an accident but he deserves the pain for making Parrot's heart jump to his throat! Spoke reacts fast, shushing him through his own giggles by grabbing Parrot's shoulders and pushing them both down to the pavement.

Kneeling, Parrot glares at Spoke, who is still trying to smother his amusement –and doing a poor job at it. "Did you see him in there?" he asks, irritably raising an eyebrow. The feathers on his face poof with goosebumps, making his skin itchy.

Spoke, finally done with his laughing, does a so-so gesture. "I think he's in there. It's pretty dark and there is this one corner with big cages where they hold people." This isn't worrying at all. "But there are a lot more guards inside than outside, so getting in and out of there is a big no-no."

"I guessed that much...", Parrot trails off in thought. What could they do to rescue a voidwalker? Especially when they don't have his exact location inside that cage-corner. "We'll need a distraction" he voices his prior thoughts.

Spoke blinks at him and slowly nods. "We'll get in during the auction when it's dark and you'll be more hidden." he continues the plan from where the avian left off.

Parrot grins. "And we wing it!"

When night comes, they are armed to the teeth. Parrot has dressed in the most dark and discreet clothes he could find in his closet and Spoke has rid himself of his signature neon bandana. It is a bit weird to suddenly see his friend with bangs partially covering his eyes but there is no time to dwell on appearances right now. The main goal is to not be seen and with the docks remaining dimly lit, so far so good.

The docks are crawling with security guards. Big, buff men with dining tables for backs stand at attention like soldiers at the giant, metal doors of the warehouses, incredibly intimidating but also tunnel-visioned. People trickle in from the marina nearby, disembarking small, shady boats but dressed rather lavishly for being out at sea this late. There are some black cars driving into the area, parking outside, in the harbor's parking area. Similarly dressed people emerge from them too.

The auction must be happening soon.

Spoke guides Parrot behind some crates. He explains and points at a broken window, tells him which way to go and where to meet up. They have already discussed their roles in this mission: Parrot will do the physical part of lifting and dragging Xisuma out of there, whilst Spoke will keep watch and generally make sure that there will be no outside interference.

The broken window is easy enough to reach with only one boost of his wings. Looking behind him, he signals Spoke with a thumbs up, watching his friend melt into the darkness before actually entering the warehouse.

Parrot's feet hit the metal floor with a dull thump. He stills for a moment, feathered ears twitching, listening for the sounds of footsteps. There is no one on this level and with a quick look around, he finds out why. It's just a small room with little interest aside from the random, questionable stains on the concrete walls.

When he pushes against the door, easing it open, there are voices echoing throughout the entire building. He can't tell where he is but he trusts Spoke's directions to lead him to where he needs to go. Outside of the room is a balcony, the floor of it metal like the room behind him. Below, he sees people roaming about in the harsh light of projectors and conversing with each other; some are dressed in black but most of them sparkle; most of them are guests. That must be the main room, where the lots will be presented. It isn't easy to make out from the ground floor but from his position, Parrot can make out a makeshift dais behind long, red curtains and metal frames.

Spoke told him to go that direction to go to the storage area. He follows with no doubts now that he's seen the stage. Carefully, he tiptoes as best as he can with the metal thudding under his feet. It's difficult to keep quiet and the constant give-away noise of his footsteps has his heart drumming in his ears. The first pulley he sees, he latches on and slides down to the ground floor, grimacing at the rope burns he is sure to have later.

Getting behind the stage is easy enough and when he enters the hallway to the storage area, dimly lit by a few old lightbulbs, Parrot finds the guards stationed to be... incapacitated on the floor. Not dead, just concussed, and with a little frustrated fire in his chest makes him huff with disgust.

"Took you long enough.", Spoke whispers from farther up ahead. Parrot just makes him out of the shadows and that is only because Spoke's eyes glow white. Were they not friends, he would have freaked out.

"Yeah, yeah," Parrot waves him off with a hand and a roll of his eyes. He feels a hand on his shoulder and then a pat, and he knows that Spoke has assumed his position to be the eyes on his back.

They continue down the hallway, keeping to the shadows of the dim lighting and hiding behind crates when a guard passes by. It is sheer luck that there are big enough gaps between boxes that Parrot can fit in without compressing his wings more than he already is.

A rectangular frame is the door to the storage room. The room itself looks big, the ceiling high enough to perhaps allow flight and there are ropes hanging from the rafters. Lining the halls are antiques of various shapes and sizes: vases, tables, pots, shisha, glasses wrapped in bubble plastic, swords, armor and even pens. In Parrot's opinion, there is more rubbish than worth amongst the items but who is he to judge?

He snugs a box of calligraphy pens anyways. They're here to cause chaos, so they may as well come out of this with more than just a voidwalker.

"Where?" he whispers to Spoke once they've reached another cross-section of boxes and antiques and mind-blowingly expensive items. He's given direction by a vague wave of a shadowy hand and that's the way he goes.

The hall of antiques turns into a hall of cages. Big and small, either plated or iron linked. All of them held some form of life inside, ranging from small lizards to big cats to human hybrids. Parrot freezes when his eyes land on another avian, cowering in the corner of a cage with little clothes hanging off their shoulders, face hidden behind big, dark wings.

The idea that he could have ended up like this kid scares him. Alone and scared, in a confined space with no insight to his own future.

He takes a step back, accidentally bumping into metal with a bang that has most of the animals howling in protest.

"Quiet down in there!" a loud voice booms through the halls. The cages rattle once and like clockwork, the noise stops. Parrot presses his back against a wooden crate so hard that his wings hurt. Footsteps thud against the metal floor. "Fuckin' animals..."

The footsteps walk away but there is a distinct sound of metal that follows them. It makes Parrot shudder unwillingly and curl in on himself as he looks around the corner. There is no one there; not even Spoke.

It worries him slightly. The silence is unnerving.

"Hey!" A hurried whisper comes from his right. Parrot almost jumps away at the sight of a man against the bars of his cage, calloused hands gripping onto them. His eyes look frantic but a small glimmer of hope rests in their depths. "Kiddo, open the door!"

On the door in question is a heavy lock. Parrot doesn't have the key to it and he doubts he can grab them off of a security guard without blowing his and Spoke's cover. So, he does the next best thing: he jams one of his talons in there.

It's terrifying and uncomfortable but this man and the rest could prove to be the distraction they needed to escape. There are clicks vibrating up his finger as he works and he grimaces.

"What are you doing here alone? Looking for someone?"

The last click sounds and the lock feels heavier in his hand. Some of the nearby hybrids grow restless at the sight of the freed man, approaching towards the light. Looking around at the cages, Parrot can't find any that have an oxygen mask or a visor or plated armor.

"Actually, I am." He says, hesitantly. This man is a mystery but Spoke wasn't able to locate Xisuma during his scouting. It's the best chance he can have, possibly. "Have you seen a voidwalker?"

"A voidwalker?" the man sounds surprised. "Why?"

Parrot doesn't reply. He patiently waits for his answer as the cage opens and the hybrid person crawls out.

"I haven't seen a voidwalker in person but yesterday, they brought in that metal crate over there." he says, stretching out his arms and legs. The man is much taller than Parrot thought he was, merely because he was bent in half due to the cage's height. "Bet you there is something dangerous in there."

With that said, Parrot wastes no time in running to the crate. Behind him, he can hear quiet chatter and metal moving about. He examines the door of the cage, all covered with metal sheets without any openings. Its contents are unknown but time is slowly running out.

People have started clapping between intervals from the main area, meaning that the first items are being presented. Hopefully, the living things are the last on the list.

This cage has a lot of locks, ranging from the likes of the one he removed just a moment ago to bigger ones. His talons get stuck on multiple occasions whilst he tries to unlock all of them, leaving ragged, sharp edges that feel strange and wrong along them. Only one lock remains when he is done with the rest and it's the hardest of them all.

No matter how much he presses down, there are no clicks. The cages behind him are emptying fast, the noise and havoc raising as they're freed. There is shouting and gunshots that ring out from the main room, all accompanied by screams.

Parrot's hands tremble as he fixes his attention on the lock but the thing still doesn't budge. The yelling is coming closer and there is only one thing keeping him inside the storage area. The hand that grabs onto his shoulder is brushed off easily, and he doesn't need to turn around to know that it's Spoke who has come to retrieve him.

"Parrot, we've gotta go!" his friend shouts, grabbing again at his shoulder. Parrot throws him a determined glare and Spoke relents. "Have you tried shooting it off?"

Without thinking too much about it, Parrot pulls his talon out of the lock. He grabs his gun from the belt loop of his trousers and follows Spoke's suggestion. A loud bang, another gunshot and the lock fell to the ground, so heavy that it shook the metal floor beneath their feet.

The cage door is incredibly heavy, so much so that they both have to pull to open it. The air that shoots out is ice cold, freezing, and makes both of them back away hissing. Parrot's fingertips burn and sting like he's touched ice and the feathers across his cheeks and ears ruffle.

The first thing he notices is the soles of two boots, tied around the ankles with zip-ties. A pair of boots he knows all too well thanks to his height.

"Spoke, grab on." he instructs and then, his own hands have wrapped around the foot of one. The metal plates of the boot are ice cold, numbing his palms more than the ice packs in the school's icebox. Spoke hisses a few moments after they start pulling, disengaging completely when it gets too much.

Even through the pain, Parrot still pulls, revealing more and more of Xiusma's limp body into the sorry light of the storage area. The state of the man scares him: unresponsive, deathly still, no rise and fall of his chest.

"Spoke–" another gunshot rings out not too far away. The bullet ricochets off the rafters, or something iron up above. The prisoners in the room have slowly trickled out; it's just them in there, save for a few that are lingering at the corners and the halls, waiting for a perfect moment to escape. "Spoke, is he dead?" his voice wavers and his grip tightens around the man's armor-covered calf, lest his hands tremble.

Instead of answering, Spoke helps him move the man out of the cage and to the floor. The helmet is missing completely and the fact that the tubes and the cylinders of the stuff Xisuma breathes are gone.

Kneeling beside him, the two boys look him over. Parrot grabs Xisuma's face and puts a finger under his nose. There is the slightest breath puff against his skin... he can't tell if this is good or bad.

"How are we going to get him out of here?" Spoke questions, rubbing his hands together for a semblance of warmth.

"...I don't know." Parrot didn't plan for the event that Xisuma would be unresponsive.

Behind them, the hybrid man Parrot freed approaches them. The boy raises an eyebrow; he thought the man had already left with the others. "I can help you," the man says, and what do they have to lose?

They situate Xisuma in the man's arms, freed of the bothersome zip-ties thanks to a Spoke's handy multitool. Parrot picks up his gun, which he accidentally dropped on the floor and keeps it at his side as they move through the halls.

When a guard stops them, he doesn't hesitate to aim for the head. The pinpoint accuracy that comes with avian eyes is deadly and it is proven then. The guard drops to the ground, blood oozing out of his head. Parrot doesn't grimace, overtaken by begrudging fear and scared shitless for the state his... guardian (yes, that's the word) is in.

They make it out the back thanks to Spoke's guidance and in the darkness, there is a person. Parrot raises the gun, aims– and the person reveals themselves. Miss Pearl, waiting with blood red eyes and a familiar helmet in her arms.

"Come on, kids." she calls out to them with a toothy grin. There is blood smeared on the side of her cheek, matching with the wine color of her cloak. "Let's take him home."