Naoki opened his eyes, the oddly mixed orbs of green and brown blinking couple times inside the pod his body was resting in. He slowly took in his surroundings, ultimately sighing as it was indeed the basement level of his home, only place that was big enough to have the full gaming gear inside of it and had the necessary plumbing mechanism to make a full blown secret hideout where not a soul would be capable of finding him if he didn't wish so.
And Naoki rarely wanted to be found.
One could argue and claim that he was prideful man who thought too highly of himself, but it was quite the opposite. Naoki hated himself to the maximum. Hated himself because he was always hurt, because he couldn't be understood by those who were around him, because he saw things differently, because he was a realist, because he saw how the system didn't work, because he knew that the humanity was build upon piles of corpses that the New generations were forced to climb over, because he thought it was unfair, because he was a genius.
All of his self hatred and bad feelings came from that one source called a brain. He'd be lying if he claimed to have never thought about ending his own life just to make the pain stop, but he'd then have to also deny the fact that he was living just because he wanted to fix things. He had no superpowers nor physical strength, so he couldn't be the kind of hero that saved people by fighting like Captain America and Spiderman did, he lacked funds and skill to become a pilot of a super advanced high tech suit like Iron Man. Only thing he had was his wits and closed off personally, his body being his prison and limitation among with the limitations that were bestowed upon his persona by the society. And he hated every second of his life as a useless person, incapable of becoming a needed part of the machine of the humanity, fated to look at its work by the eyes of an outsider. He'd never be the part, he'd known that as long as his memory went.
Each movement he made was as if in jelly or very thick soup, his mind yearning to return to the world he had a place in, had a worth, had friends. Pained to be fractured apart of the world he wanted to be in. But it was no use, he had to go upstairs, he had to work on the team project, he had to live instead of living. And with each passing moment he felt more and more out of place. It hurt to be there, it felt more like a trap and less like a life worth living. His eyes took in the room and soon closed as the painful reminder of what he wasn't, what he lacked, grew too much to bear.
The moldy grey stone walls that were never made to look nice, accompanied by the darker grey cement floor. It was cold and bare, lifeless, soulless, dull. The only colours in the room came from the wires that travelled around the room, creating unfinished and, dare I even say, depressed look into the space. There was a small kitchen area Nao had built it himself from scratch and spare parts. Learned how from the books, the Internet and the always present lifestyle shows. The secret floor was still unfinished, but it already had enough for one to bunker themself in for decades and live somewhat comfortably. If you weren't into socialising that was. There was a tiny bathroom with working plumbing system, it's own bathtub with a shower option, there was a bedroom like section where he could rest, though he preferred to sleep in the pod while logged into the game, it was more peaceful, more comfortable, more real. Then there was the kitchen and... The game.
Naoki forced himself to walk into the staircase he'd hidden behind a bookshelf, it was very convenient bookshelf to be honest, it was just the right size and easy to move along with the door to which it was attached to. And as he always had the key, and the only one who knew where the keyhole was there wasn't any danger of someone finding his safe haven in his absence. Like this longer absence during which he was forced to host some stupid study circle to his "team" that probably would try to dig through his personal stuff and drink until they couldn't stand and leave his home at 3am. Ugh. People.
The male finally arrived into his "living room" with the neat opening of a staircase, maybe he should put money aside to build an elevator under the stair case? It'd make things so much faster and it could be hidden with ease too. He glanced at himself from the mirror and decided to paint a regular human face onto himself this time. Naoki admitted that he was pretty okay looking person, but he didn't like the fact that he had a baby face despite of being in his 20s, hence he'd learned how to do make up in order to make himself look older than 13 year old brat. His words, not mine.
He looked around in the setting he'd created, the illusion that was of a normal living room. It had just enough detail to give it personality and signal that it was his living room, but it still wasn't anything more than a set piece to him. His whole house was like that, a set one could easily use to film a whole movie in and fool the audience to think that it was legit.
The "House" gave off the impression of a firm man, a traditionalist, who lived by certain rules and a strict schedule, though it couldn't be further away from the truth. Naoki never followed schedules, his sleeping pattern was a mess, he'd wake up at three am to draw, go back to sleep at six, wake up at two and play until midnight. He himself was a mess, but he didn't mind it. It wasn't really that harmful for him.
He wasn't that traditional either and was quite eccentric, a quirk that his officers had soon found out and embraced with triumph. He would've fit straight into the Addams family had they existed in real life same way as on the screen if we're being honest here.
Naoki chose his clothes of the day, a button up shirt, white, dark trousers and a grey vest, and deemed himself to be presentable. He absentmindedly wondered if any of those around him had yet caught onto his act and realised that he wasn't quite what he let on. But then again, he'd lived over twenty years crafting his mask, it'd be hard to see through something that has been practised and fined for decades in order to make sure that he wouldn't be bothered much.
He looked into the mirror, his long red hair now tied up onto a low ponytail and the makeup shaping his facial features into sharper ones. He allowed the spark he'd usually have to dull away, this was where Naoki ended and Natael started. The mask was placed, set was ready and the script was clear, it was always clear, humans were so easy to predict that it made him almost laugh.
He glanced over the list he'd received earlier and typed the number in, Natael ordered pizza and waited...
Natalia blinked as she looked how her boss faded from the view, knowing that he was now in the other dimension. She didn't quite know how she was able to understand what it was, just like she didn't know how she knew what it was. She'd always been like that, ever since she had been created. The housekeeper took a look at her script, or at least tried to, and once again failed to do so. She'd found herself to be more and more aware as days went by and realised that she saw her creators more as her own children than higher force that had given her shape and form. She was very much a mother to everyone who came into the household, no matter the age nor position, and she had complete faith in her children.
The woman glanced out of the window as the Red division's leader, Storm Officer under the name Maya, put her troops go through Hell and back, her fire both inspiring and scaring her underlings. Maya had all three of her flame types in use, but as a result her emotional balance had become jagged and harder to control. Though Natalia suspected that it was common with storm type as she'd never met anyone red who was not a boiling mess under everything.
As she watched, Maya's posture dropped, ah, so the young woman needed coffee and some sweets to go with it, perhaps a Danish pastry? Natalia turned away from the window, headed towards the kitchen. Her mind analysing what she saw while thinking of what to serve for the dinner, sure she wasn't the chef, but she knew the Seven and was capable of reading their moods with ease, this alone made her one of the strongest in the house.
Passing a door after door, her mind came up with the most perfect combination to serve for those who were now in the building of the Seven. The purple lady appeared to be stressed, so she'd be given Ceylon tea with a slice of lemon, sugar and milk to accompany her slice of cake. The master of yellow appeared to be worn-out after his workout session so a simple milk tea would do, the illusionist always had a herbal tea at this time of day and the green sir would be given decaf. The last one mentioned truly needed to watch his coffee usage and try to be more healthy, perhaps a nice fruit salad would also be in order for him?
The yellow Master, whose name wasn't known as he liked to change between the names often, though Primo referred to him as Sun, soon staggered out of the training room where the newest recruits with sun flames had been the whole day. Out of breath he kept looking around with a tired glint in his eyes, Natalia would make sure to mention it to the Don. The confusion could be almost tasted in the air as the Sun Officer scanned the hallway, obviously unsure of where his boss was.
"Sky?" he asked quietly, his soft pronunciation giving out him not being a native speaker, albeit he spoke without any clear accent. Natalia looked at him, today he was rocking long black hair with brown eyes it seemed, jegus he took the whole undercover thing super seriously. Natalia's eyes softened as she was certain that he and the young Don had bonded flame wise long ago. "He had something to do in the other dimension, he should be back for dinner or later", she said as she observed the male's reaction to the information.
Sun nodded slowly, clearly not happy with the answer, but decided not to push it, Naoki didn't really like to talk about his private life outside the game. However, the longer he was away, the more restless the officers were and none of them knew what was causing it. Natalia patted his shoulder telling the man to go rest before the tea time and the man complied, his brows furrowed in worry as per usual when someone he cared for wasn't present.
Natael was not a happy person at that moment. His study group was not even trying to hide the fact that they weren't interested in the work they needed to go through, didn't even bother to act as if they weren't lazy. The male sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, it was no good, he was exhausted and needed to rest, but he still had at least an hour or so to go.
"Amanda,could you please show me what you've done so far?" he said carefully and the blonde girl in question complied as she kept complaining about the task itself. Natael referred to all of his study partners as either boys of girls, never men and women and the reason was simple. None of them acted like the adults they were and chose to act as if they were sixteen. Which was not a good thing if you know what the mindset of a hormonal teenager is like.
He swiftly scanned through the text, his eyes narrowed as he spotted her credited sources. He then deleted a line of text before opening the site she'd originally typed and started to click through the links. "Wikipedia isn't a creditable source because it can be edited by anyone, it's also basically an essay in itself, hence if you do want to use it, it's better to check out the sources the author used instead and use them when making the source list", he finally said as he showed the computer screen to the flustered girl.
"Well I'm sorry, not all of us can be geniuses like you", she answered with slightly rude voice, which didn't go unnoticed by anyone present. Natael took a deep breath and smiled. It wasn't really a true smile, it didn't even make it to his eyes that stayed cold and emotionless. "Come on now, you're much smarter than I am! You know all kinds of stuff that I don't and you're so much better with people than I, doesn't that make you a genius on your own right?" his answer was a lie. A total lie. But he didn't want to cause more provocations, didn't want to be in middle of an argument, arguments took time and he'd rather have his "guests" gone as soon as possible. But the blonde didn't notice, she was too busy with flaunting her own ego while the rest of the group were paying attention to her antics.
Natael's smile dropped as he started to read through what he'd written so far. His essay was ready, he knew that it was perfect, and yet... He opened the version he'd made beforehand, a version that looked unfinished. He couldn't afford to look like he was ready, the rest would only try to get him to do theirs then.
Pretending to concentrate on writing, his brows furrowed, he kept reading the articles about the subject. And whenever someone asked him where he was with his essay, he'd laugh as if embarrassed and say that he's only at certain page.
The night fell and the study group left, each of them either smiling happily over "successful" group study or muttering about the whole assignment being a conspiracy created by the teachers inorder to torment their students.
Natael saw them off and made sure that they were gone before he'd return to his real home, wash his face and slide into comfort of the fake world that soon welcomed him.
Looking at the clock, he saw that it was around 6pm ingame, the dinner time. He already knew that he looked exhausted, the game avatars responded to the initial mood of the gamer after all, so when he exited his office, those who weren't aware of what he'd been really doing assumed that it was because of all the paperwork he had to go through.
Natalia was the one to inform him of the dinner being served and so he followed her, his cape flowing behind him dramatically.
As he arrived, he saw his officers and couple high ranked hitmen already being present. Naoki swiftly took his seat, greeting everyone present as he so did. True to their nature, the officers soon were asking him questions to ensure that he was alright. He only smiled at them affectionately as his answer went through their private chats. "I am now."
Satisfied with the answer, the group dug in.
And then...
It hit them.