Chapter 3: Meeting

The cafe door bell clinging as this two friend enter the cafe. Kaiden go to the staff room as he'll begin his shift and Zayden waiting to order on the counter. After few seconds Kaiden go to counter wearing a white apron and the cafe's uniform"whatcha order?" Says Kaiden as he waiting Zayden to make his order

"Hm... I'll order this... Best seller? Toast and grilled cheese" says Zayden as he saw the best seller menus at the top of counter.

"Aight, I'll go to kitchen then" say Kaiden as he go to the kitchen as he gonna finish this order.

Zayden looked around and see few people inside the cafe, he saw many student groups from high schooler to college student seem busy chatting and working on their thesis.

"Here's your order, it'll be 2$. I suggest to eat here while the cheese still melting" says kaiden as he hand over the small paper bag of toast with grilled cheese.

"Oh... thanks. Anyway is this cafe usually crowd this time?" says Zayden as he ready to leave.

"Yep, well this place usually full of college students and highschool students than old person tho" say Kaiden as he received the 2$ cash and put it into cashier machine.

"Well then, I'll go home now, see you later" Zayden saying goodbye as he go out from cafe, drive his motorcycle to his house. He still had something to do later night, he'll make sure that he will get enough rest before the next mission at night due to the informant tell him that the demon amount in this city getting increased, he's hoping to not meet Joker later then.

Time passes till evening, after getting enough rest he got a notification on his phone that there's an announcement from his informant.

"Go to the headquarters, we'll prepared a meeting. All squad members shall arrived at least 08.00 pm".

Seeing this makes Zayden's eye widen a bit. This may be the first time he'll get a chance to meet the other member of his team in this meeting to discuss something important. He tries to get up from his bed still feeling sleepy before he take a bath and wear his usual duty clothes. "Ugh.... I hate to see him again. But at least I can get a better picture of them". After that he ride his motorcycle to the headquarters.

As he enter the area while swipe his ID card to a scanner, he heard the echoes of screeching demons out there"I wonder how worse this might be...".

He walked across the corridor while searching the right meeting room based from the info in his phone. He walk at one corridor with many doors with a small plate of the room's names, these meeting room usually belongs to the other squads. "Meeting room... Spade Team" then he saw a white door with small metal plate named 'Spade Team', he quickly swipe his ID card on a scanner outside the room and the door unlocked.

He turns the door handle and enter the room, he surprised see the round table with 4 chairs and there's three person sitting on their chair seem expecting his presence. There's a tall guy with normal expression mask, he has long hair, bright yellow eyes and wear a small gold cross earring, he has serious aura around him. "So like the info the informant gives. He's indeed in my team 'The Exorcist' and his nickname was.... 'King' if I'm not wrong. The informant says he's the most reliable person in the team and cooperating with the other team, the best option. I've heard that he's always the solution if anyone from other team member needed, many people relied on him" says Zayden in his mind.

The next person beside him, she's the only girl in this team. She wear graceful looking yet plain expression on her white mask, she has long purplish hair and pinkish eyes, she looks independent and beautiful. "I knew her, she also known as 'The Ivy Queen' that's suitable for her since her nickname was also 'Queen' since she's very knowledgeabl in medical and poison field. Two reliable people doesn't sounds bad tho" think Zayden as he feels a bit relieved there's at least two sane person in this room, he doesn't really need to say anything about that Joker that sitting on his chair "well those two was a complete opposite to him. I heard almost no one ever one other team member want to teamwork with him, they put him as the last option for teamwork. But he's also one of the best option if there's interrogation needed I wonder what technique he put to make people talk...". Zayden think a bit about this team nickname was sounds like poker deck and their team name is 'spade' seems the commander really likes poker game so he's naming this team like that...

"So you're the Ace, have a seat. We still have 5 more minutes until the meeting began" says King with sounding stern tone yet also sounds casual.

"Oh! Please have some tea I just made too. It's our first time met you haven't we?" Says Queen with enthusiasm tone as he pour a cup of jasmine tea. The smell of it spread across the room making the tense lessened and made a clarity to their mind.

"Thank you for your thoughtfulness, this taste good"

"It's fine, Ace. There's no need to be so formal here" says King reassuring as he opened half of his mask and take a sip from his own cup.

Then Zayden take a seat and sip the tea as he sighed and the tea still warm and taste good. He saw the Joker beside him seem scribbling something in his notebook. "Heh, finally meeting you again" say Zayden without interest.

"I'm sure we already say 'see you never' that time aaand.... you're back" says Joker nonchalantly as he continues scribbling.

"Of course, and why would I want to sit next to you. Especially after you hit someone with your van last night" Zayden sentence makes King almost choked on his tea.

"Hm... I see you two have a chemistry last night haven't you?" The King said.

"W-what chemistry? Anyway, how the heck this entity knowing he was about to crash on something and instead slowing down he speed up the van!" say him a bit annoyed.

"Wha-? 'entity'?! isn't it too shameful for you to just call me a 'person'? At least it's not a civilian I crash" say Joker with protest tone.

"Haha... Alright-alright you two. The meeting will begin soon" Queen tried to calm both Joker and Zayden. Not long after that, the commander enter the room. His face was stern as it seem this meeting was important and serious.

"Tonight, we're going to discuss that we just discover a demon species that seem their population was increased... This imp sized demon scattered around the city" says commander as he flipping the pages through his files.

"That's weird... Why so sudden their amount increased significantly, from my last patrol they seems going in big groups at least more than 20 imps in one group. Seems it's a new case" says King as he also giving information based from his patrol.

The atmosphere was tense due this new cases while thinking the way to solve this. "Is this case possible for us to make other teamwork with the other team?" Says Zayden curious.

"Possibly yes I've talk about this with the other commander and chief" say the commander with serious tone.

"Are these thing like valuables thing? Cuz I see them raid the jewelry shop. Then there's must be a mastermind behind this" says Joker nonchalantly. "Interesting.... Did you somehow solve that issue?" Ask the commander curious.

"Well.... Nope, it's robbed already when I came. But I caught this lil guy" say him as he put a small sack on the table, it kept moving and small shrieking coming out from it so Joker need to grip it to prevent it to escape. Everyone eyes pointed at the creature inside the sack.

"Unfortunately this thing have no intelligence to speak or giving any information to do interrogation. I'll take it as a sample then" say him casually.

"...how the heck did he even put that thing in a sack?!!"