Cicada <- Mantis <- Oriole

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Quinn stretched on the roof in his Noir gear configured into a grey urban camouflage setting. It had been a second since he had put on the suit— the Taboo curse had run out of steam with no Snatchers responding to the calls— he had done a month where he had slept in two very short shifts and had gone out after anyone who had responded to his Taboo calls and swept the floor with them hard. Since that month, the Taboo activity had been cut to near zero, excluding some exceptions.

After ticking out the last crack in his back, the mask appeared over his face, and he moved towards the center of the roof to the edge. He turned invisible, stepped on the ledge, and looked down at a window of a calligraphy store, behind which an elderly friend sat trying out new stationery. Quinn turned his head around the street and scoured the general crowd, and there he saw it— people acting weird while trying to blend in naturally.

'Use magic, you morons,' he thought, looking at the fools who were not using a single shred of magic.

Head of Beast Division, Steven Jeffery— the man in charge of sub-departments like Centaur Liaison Office, Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau, Troll Patrol. . . and the Security Council of Werewolf Caution. It was clear why he was a target today; eliminating the man in charge of so many important sub-department would cause so many security problems that the DMLE would receive a ton of tension.

'A perfect start to the day. . .'

Quinn stretched his gloves over his hand and stepped back down. He turned to the side, ran, jumped over to the next roof, and crossed the distance before dropping into the alley below. He cut his fall with magic and silently walked behind the Death Eater, standing in the shadow of the wall, smoking a pipe— he was doing the best job, so Quinn decided to take him out first.

Quinn tapped the wall, and the bricks shifted behind the man, creating a void in which he fell. Quinn snapped his finger, and the sound of the horrified man's scream was snuffed out. When the bricks closed, all that was left behind were the Death Eater's hands, and the fingers moved around, trembled, and even desperately flexed in search of freedom. Quinn extended his hands and intertwined his fingers with the Death Eater's, along with various tiny holes for breathing purposes.

"Sorry, but this is going to be traumatic," he muttered. Tetani Nervum coursed through the Death Eater's arms and crippled them to the core. He then released the Death Eater from the wall imprisonment and dropped him down to the ground. He crouched down and entered the man's head to get some concrete information about the plan.

'Got it.' Quinn got up and cast an anti-attention shroud over the Death Eater. He walked out in the street while being invisible; he spread his arms wide, and invisible magic started raining down on the Death Eaters. Their eyes dulled and hazed for a moment before they returned to normal.

He dipped into an alley again, and a moment later, he was out in his John disguise. He wasted no time and entered the calligraphy shop— behind him, not a single Death Eater twitched even a muscle.

"Welcome, sir," greeted the female employee with a smile. "How may we serve you today?"

Quinn smiled, "I'm here to pick up a guest." Even though she was still putting up a professional smile, he could see the confusion in her eyes. He didn't wait for her response and clapped once; a wave of magic surged out of him, and it was like someone had pushed pause on a video; no one moved or reacted and remained utterly still— except Quinn.

He walked to Steven Jeffrey. There Ministry top-brass had his eyes concentrated on his writing with the quill's tip touching the paper that was soaking up the ink, creating a widening ink blot. Quinn snapped his finger, and the quill slipped out from Steven's hand into the ink pot.

"Let's get you out of here," Quinn tapped the man on his bald spot, and Steven went limp.

Quinn walked out of the shop with Steven in tow, floating beside him under an invisibility spell. He looked behind and clapped again for the store to resume its activity again— the female employee who had greeted him blanked out for a second before turning to another customer. Quinn gazed at the Death Eaters, who had their eyes trained on the shop window and hadn't moved at all; even though Steven Jefferey was no longer there, they didn't react. Such was the power of illusion magic. They saw an illusion of Steven Jeffery doing what he was doing before.

'Two minutes,' noted Quinn. According to the scouting, Steven left the calligraphy store at the same time every Friday. He dumped Steven Jeffery on a bench on the street and then walked towards the Death Eaters.

Two minutes later, out of a team of six Death Eaters, five had their hands crippled, and Quinn was staring down at the unconscious sixth man. "You're one lucky guy, Goyle," Quinn shook his head. Every team leader had to report back on specific points of the day to communicate that everything was going according to the plan. "Get ready to have a good day. . ." He placed his hand on Goyle's head and began fabricating.

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Rivers Lock apparated into a forest with nothing else but trees. A place away from everything, somewhere he had explicitly chosen to hold meetings. If he had chosen the meeting point in the headquarters or a place with a roof, some of the team leaders would've been bound to become lazy, thinking their job was done. In a place like this, they would rather go back and wait with their people.

He turned to notice a bulky large-framed man sitting on a luxurious chair— clearly conjured— under a tree's canopy shade.

Rivers walked in front of the chair and asked: "How did it go, Goyle?"

Vincent Goyle, who had been combing his long beard with a beard comb, looked up at Rivers with unhidden displeasure and snorted, "What do you expect?"

Rivers stared at Goyle without a word. Goyle stared back that soon turned into a glare, but Rivers continued to stare down at the man. He knew many Death Eaters didn't like him, labeling him as a 'fake' Death Eater because of his past as a Novellus Accionites. It hadn't been a problem when he had been under Pettigrew's 'mentorship,' but they had turned on him when the Dark Lord had begun giving him attention. Miserable people playing their pathetic politics. At least people like Rookwood and Pettigrew made the experience bearable.

When Goyle saw that Rivers didn't budge, he grumbled, "It's done. Jeffery is on the allocated area."

"Dead?"

"Dead."

Rivers nodded, "Good, now return," and turned away to leave.

"Don't be proud of this," called Goyle, scoffing. "You're nothing but a bug."

Rivers didn't reply. It wasn't needed. Goyle was a simpleton whose brain operated like an ape. He apparated out, not giving another look to Goyle.

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When Rivers left, Goyle stood up and also left by way of apparation, all the while grumbling about pathetic lowlives. He left the forest and arrived at a small cabin situated in a grassland with a gentle breeze wafting the green pastures.

"I've returned," said Goyle upon entering the wooden cabin. "Any problems while I was gone? . . . No? Good. . . Where's the body? In the back." Goyle walked to the back room and looked inside the back room, and gazed at the table in the center of the room. He nodded before walking back into the front. "Anyone by chance brought something to drink?" he asked. He got no response in return. He sighed, "No matter, we shall drink our hearts out when today ends, and celebrate in the name of our glorious Lord."

He cheered, sat down on the padded rocking chair, swung back and forth. . . and seemingly talked to people who were not there, laughing all alone in the small cabin. There was no one in the little house, not even a dead body in the back room that Goyle had just seemingly checked.

All alone.

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Quinn looked up at the hole in the ceiling, watching the light snow falling down. He followed a little flake as it fluttered past his face, weightlessly made its way down to the floor, and gently landed on a Death Eater's check. The cloudy white snowflake dyed red from the blood that bled out of a shallow cut.

Fourteen Death Eaters laid around him in all sorts of horrendous positions and shared the fact that they all were riddled with injuries. Quinn sighed; things had gone awry so quickly. He looked at the cause of it, and he couldn't say that he wasn't surprised.

Nott Senior. Father of Theodore Nott. The man that had once tried to make his underaged son into a Death Eater. Quinn had thought that the man would be more shrewd if he had once tried to leverage his son, but it turned out that he was just another idiot.

"To be not trusted by your own side, what a pitiful sight," he sighed.

The day had started great; he had begun with Goyle's team and had made it through half of the teams before lunch without a hint of trouble. But then he met Nott's team and faced the first unexpected situation, and none of it was his fault. Nott's target was Colton Hirsch, the high-functioning alcoholic.

The operation had started well, with Quinn identifying every single one of the Death Eaters in record time. They were just sitting around in the biggest bar in town, watching Hirsch without even pretending to hide. Unlike with Goyle, he couldn't repeat what he did in the calligraphy store with so many people drinking in the bar, so he decided to target Hirsch instead.

When the drunkard decided to go piss, Quinn followed him with the plan of shooting Hirsch with a stunner inside a stall, tapping him up in there under an invisibility spell and then taking his place. But it turns out that Nott had the same plan as half of his team followed them inside the washroom.

Wands were drawn, and in the tight quarters, Quinn had taken quick action and used hostile force against the Death Eaters, breaking bones and knocking consciousness. Alas, they had squealed like pigs, and some of the noise leaked out before Quinn could silence it, causing the rest of the Death Eaters to come inside. He had knocked them out instantly, but then something shocking happened. A hole blew up in the ceiling, and spells rained inside. Taking them out was simple, and Quinn had done so, but the gaping hole in the roof could've created a problem.

"Let's hope no one was scouting," Quinn muttered.

He snapped his fingers, and the debris flew back to the ceiling, sealing the gap up; in a couple of seconds, the roof was whole again. He walked to Nott and targeted the feeble mind of the fool.

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Quinn West - MC - Let's see, shall we?

FictionOnlyReader - Author - 1 down, 1 to go.

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The link is in the synopsis!