unforgiven ➽ a Halilintar-centric fic

02 | deal with a devil

As rare as they were to come by, Halilintar was having a pretty nice day.

Aside from the Karen who'd marched up to his shop, demanded a refund using a crumpled receipt from the local WFC, then threatened to sue when he refused to give her the "apology drink" she "kindly" requested. Still, a minor inconvenience, nothing to think back about.

He kept his positive mood even when a random kid spilt his hot chocolate all over the counter just because he didn't like the foam art done for his drink.

He kept his positive mood even when some ass of a teenager decided it was a mighty fine idea to play hot potato with their paper-thin bag of cheese tarts and ran away when the bag hit a random weightlifter in the back and burst into a slop of cheese and crust.

He kept his positive mood even when the latte machine broke down for the third time this week, despite the machine being only a month old and worth a whole three weeks' worth of profit to purchase.

Halilintar no longer had his good mood.

He was banging at the latte machine, empty paper cup in hand as he demanded the damn thing to just work—when a huge gust of wind swept over the Kokotiam, sending all the paper cups, tissues, plastic utensils and chairs flying. Customers looked around in a myriad of confusion and panic, the screams of young toddlers and teenage boys alike filling the air.

Halilintar whipped around in surprise, only to be smacked in the face by flailing tissues. By the time he pried them off his face, the wind had completely died down, and in a distance sat a spaceship that clearly was not there before.

The paper cup and tissues in his hand turned to ash as murder flashed in his eyes.

Yeah, his day was completely ruined now.

Before they stepped out of the ship, they had a mandatory meeting.

Cahaya mapped out a rough estimation of Pulau Rintis' outline on a holographic screen, using his fingers as a pen to trace white lines. "This island is considered mediocre by scouting standards, so we should take around 3 days to find our target."

He drew a circle in an area. "This is where we are at the moment." He marked several areas around the island, assigning a role to each one. "Because Air and Api have previously lived on Earth, I suggest we split into teams of two. We can cover more ground that way and have less chance of standing out to the natives. Api with me, Daun with Air. Any less-than intelligent questions?"

Air raised his hand.

"Yes, Air?"

"You know... we can just use the internet," Air informed him, dousing him in a metaphorical bucket of ice water. "Taufan already told us the name of the place. Tok Aba's Kokotiam. We punch in the name into Loogle, wait for it to respond and—ah, would you look at that. We're only fifty meters away from our destination."

Api choked. "We're right next to the damn place?"

To prove his point, Air slammed his hand onto the hangar switch. The joints creaked and whined as the slab of metal released to the ground, sunlight spilling into the rest of the electrically lit cockpit.

Air smirked. "How's that for a 'less-than intelligent question'?"

Across the ship and within walking distance was an open-air coffee shop, the name Tok Aba's Kokotiam emblazoned on the sign hanging by the roof.

The burn in Cahaya's face was as much as an answer as any. Air puffed his chest out, ready to rub it in the light wielder's face, only for his grin to die down a split second after as a chilling aura flooded the room.