About Max

JP with Jaxx, Trustno1 and Cindy

"An iced coffee." Sartre thought that hot food and drinks ruined the taste.

Agent Powers was feeling like he was getting along with Alyssa so he decided to request a coffee. Granted he did like it but he was not sure if he would get odd looks for his preference of coffee so he took a chance to request it. He asked, "Hit me with a double venti organic, chocolate brownie, caramel Frappuccino, extra hot with one inch of foam..... Non-fat please." As he tried to look serious he gave her a smoldering smile.

Alyssa was behind a small red sports car, as they pulled around the brick building when she heard the two men's orders. Not even batting an eye at Max's. "Got it." It took another few minutes but they made it to the order window. It only had one window.

"Iced coffee, " Alyssa gave Peter's order first, then without missing a beat. "Double extra large organic, chocolate brownie, caramel, Frappuccino, extra hot with one inch if foam, not-fat." The woman, who looked to be maybe 18, wrote down the order and then looked at the two people in the front seat and shrugged. Alyssa knew only Starbucks used Venti as a size. "Large cappuccino, vanilla syrup, 2 extra shots of espresso." The young barasta gave the amount, and Alyssa paid. While they were waiting she filled in the two men through the chip.

"The other Templar is a woman named Jennifer Hawkins. 26. She's a bit of an enigma. Not much is in her record before three years ago and 1/2 years ago. That's when she started traveling a great of the time to Europe. She was working with a known Templar agent, a warlock, Cheryl Somerset. She worked with Somerset for about a year. Then there isn't much except Hawkins traveled quite a bit." Not unusual for any agent. "That was until a little over a month ago, when Hawkins went to Hyderabad, India. She stayed there for longer than one would expect given her record. There isn't much on what happened there but matching the timing of Hawkin's arrival and her departure, the photos taken in customs on the way there versus the photos of her afterwards show she was very battered upon departure." Alyssa paused long enough to get the coffees, hand their orders to each of the men, take her own coffee and put it in the cup holder. She then drove out of the drive through before continuing. "There was an unusual diplomatic incident that occurred in between the time Jennifer arrived in India and the time she left in which an “Interpol” team violently eliminated a “terrorist cell” in the Hyderabad area." Alyssa made a turn. " The rest is really that Jennifer appears to have been out of commission until her trip to San Francisco.”

Agent Powers smirked at the information and sipped his coffee. He replied, "Wow..........(sip and swallow)......sounds like my vacations with my dad. So, are these Templars the violent type or the social type?" Agent Powers sipped his strong coffee again.

"They hate other factions, especially us. And the feelings are mutual. The Templars are annoyingly rigid. They have all kinds of rules and such." Alyssa paused. "Personally, if we have to work with another faction, it's better it be the Dragons. Sometimes though working with the Templars is unfortunately unavoidable.”

Agent Powers nodded as he swallowed his coffee. He understood what she meant by the lack of cooperation. Sadly he experienced it at a very young age as he met a lot of people with bad intentions like cannibals, terrorists, crime lords, drug lords, slavers, war lords, tyrants, dictators, North African Royalty, Dark Clubs, Mafia, Triads, Yakuza and the occasional mad scientist. Over the last ten years he was trained to get used to violence by his adopted father. Sadly he was in the dark as to why he had to go on all those "family vacations" and his adopted father kept him in the dark on a lot of stuff. It was hard to please his adopted father, but now and then he would get some level of approval to reinforce his loyalty. If Agent Powers did come across any other faction in the past he had no clue so he had to depend on Alyssa for that part.

"How did you get involved in the Illuminati Agent Powers?” Peter asked Max

Alyssa was interested in Max's response as well. He had a definitly unique ability that the Illuminati would want to their advantage but he didn't seem much like a typical agent even without that.

Alyssa reached up between the driver's and passenger's area and light hit a small area that jutted out just a little, it revealed a little compartment. She pulled down a pair of dark purple sunglasses and put them on. The sun had been getting progressively more annoying as the morning went on.

Agent Powers swallowed his hot coffee as he thought of his answer. Then he gave a smolder as he replied, "Well my father adopted me when I was around eight and had me home schooled along with his special training. In between my lessons we would go on vacations around the world. At first he would go with me and teach me to camp in the forests, but as I got older he would push me out of the chopper and I had to find my way back to him. It was hard having to deal with the bugs, cannibals, wild animals, terrorists, criminals and bad weather along the way. To be honest I don't get why anyone would want to lived in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. I lost track of all the places I had to destroy for my dad. Anyway this is my first mission with a team so I am still learning the ropes." Agent Powers seemed calm as he sipped his coffee.

That answer, while certainly interesting and it made Alyssa feel for the man, didn't really answer the question about how Max ended up working for the Illuminati. "So, did your father get you involved with the Illuminati then?" She asked.

Agent Powers nodded as he sipped and swallowed his coffee. He replied, "Yeah my dad is some big wig in the Illuminati, but doesn't say much about it. He said I need to not rely on his position and make my own achievements. So the only thing he provides me with is some money and missions.”

"Nice sunglasses Alyssa." said Sartre.

"Thanks," Alyssa replied. "I personally don't know how people stand the sun without them." She took a sip of her coffee which was now a reasonable temperature to drink. The sip turned into a longer drink before putting the coffee back in the cup holder.

Her eyes glanced into the rear view mirror, then she looked back to the street, back to the rearview mirror and shook her head slightly. Must have been nothing, just a trick of the light.

"Are we being followed?” Sartre inquired.

"Uh...no. I just thought I saw something but it probably was just the reflection of the light. " Alyssa shrugged, trying to portray seeming unconcerned.

Agent Powers noticed the topic switched from him to sunglasses to Alyssa checking her mirrors if they were being followed. He was doing his best to keep up with the thinking of the other two. He knew they were smarter than he was since he was a good student. At best he was a "C" student according to his strict father. However when it came to mass destruction and high end combat he was way above average. Sadly as he was working on an investigation with two people who were smarter than he was and he felt a bit out of place. Since he was clueless on what to talk about he pulled out his phone and looked at his game apps. He scrolled through them till he found one he was into. He smiled as he selected the "Spirit Hero Quest" game app. There he got to be a cool hero type that saved the world and gained a lot of popularity. In the game you need to do quests to gain popularity and experience points till you can summon a spirit to combine with to get stronger. Many players liked getting the dragon, Fenrir, Fire Fox and so on but they were hard to get and took a long time to level up in the end. By mere chance he managed to get a rare spirit offshoot which appeared to be a flaming chicken, but had the power of a fire phoenix. In that form he was handsome and super powerful so he was no longer teased by the competition. So since he was on his own again he began playing his game and took a quest to defeat some undead frogmen. He was once again in a good mood as he was in his fantasy world.

"What did you think you saw? Peter asked.

"I'm not sure. It was ..." Alyssa wasn't certain how to explain it. "Something black. Like a spot but different." Then she quickly added. "It was probably nothing."

Part that was because she was forgetting what she had seen, Alyssa knew, or felt there was more to it but it just wasn't there. Odd things had been happening to her for five years with little memory of them but leaving strong feelings. This was not, perhaps, not the time to bring that up.

Max was oblivious to what Peter and Alyssa were talking about as he was getting into his game. He was in his Phoenix/flaming chicken form which was a fit good looking guy who could easily be the hero of an anime or K-Pop group. He was blasting the bad guys with fire balls and racking up the experience points. He even managed to level up in a short time as he rescued the cute princess that was kidnapped going to be used as a sacrifice to bring back a Demon Lord. Agent Powers continued to smile as he tapped his phone and entered the part where he uses his charm to win the heart of the princess and return her to her home before having to leave for a new adventure. He looked up from his phone to see Alyssa and Peter were still talking on their own. He looked around to make sure nothing was falling in the back of the van before going back to his game.