Arriving at the party, they were a mixture of familiar faces and new faces. Most of them were world leaders from different countries, monarchs, businessmen, alumni of the old syndicate, and new students and their families.

All of them took exception when they have seen, Rahkaze Zayne and Chloe Serpentine arrive at the function. Comically, they all turned her head and student in their presence. Becoming more awkward than it already has, nobody spoke.

Rahkaze and Chloe followed suit as they didn’t say a word either. But they did manage to walk across the courtyard with everybody scrutinizing every footstep to had taken.

However, somebody had to break the silence, and fortunately, it was a middle-aged woman with a stylized dirty blonde bob cut in a blue evening gown called out to them, “Rahkaze! Chloe! You’ve made it!” she briskly walked towards the two with high heels no less, “and to think, Rahkaze, I thought you’re going to pull a no-show as you did at the banquet last year.”

“I had to work, Miss Olivia,” Rahkaze explained.

Olivia Quinten is the 7th Duchess of Devonshire and has many ties to royal families thought Spain and England. Out of the five who make up the inner circle of the Oleander Syndicate, she is the only personable one and makes friends very quickly. She acts and a liaison in many affairs in the syndicate since she is the only one that people actually trusts…

“Yeah, your father gave you your own branch in New York. Well-deserved. So, where is little Mordechai and Andrea? Those two are a couple of characters,” Olivia wondered.

“Both are still working hard. Sadly, they couldn’t make it,” Rahkaze answered as this upsets Olivia a little.

“Too bad. I really did want them to come here and catch up on a few things. Anyway, I want you to walk with me. There are so many additions to this new building.”

“Sure, but it is the grandmaster coming?” Chloe questioned.

“Knowing him, he is micromanaging his speech for the christening moment,” Olivia correctly guessed. Dolph is in the dressing room, going over the speech. With Dolph rehearsing and rearranging the flow of the address, it was a bit of a mess as this went on for several hours.

“So, in this case, it’s going to be a while?” Rahkaze questioned.

“Exactly. Besides, there are a few things I would really like you to see what we have done with the place,” Olivia said.

“Okay, let’s go,” Rahkaze agreed as the three made it out of the courtyard, only for Olivia to stop them at the exit.

It seemed like an instant when it was complete and utter silence you can hear someone’s heartbeat, people started talking frantically among themselves. Most of them couldn’t believe a member of the Zayne family, and Chloe Serpentine, the two members of the Four Horsemen, arrived at the grand opening of the new facility.

Fed up with everybody’s frantic mania, Natalia addressed the crowd the best that she could, “THEY ARE ONLY A COUPLE OF PIDGEONS, AND YET YOU ARE PISSING ALL OVER YOURSELVES!”

Hearing this outside, made Rahkaze, Olivia, and Chloe laughed amongst themselves.

At the party, the concerned Ayeka approached Natalia, “you must admit, none of us thought that Rahkaze-san would even show up. Especially Chloe-chan. Why in the world are they both here?”

“I don’t know, Ayeka. Did it ever occur to you to ask instead of staring like a scared puppy?” Natalia bellows.

Meanwhile, Kayla arrived at the party and met up with Natalia and Ayeka, “okay, Grandmaster will come shortly and will be ready to kick off the presentation.”

“Yeah, Zayne’s little kid and Serpentine arrived,” Natalia announced.

“Mordechai?” Kayla guessed.

“No, the other one,” Ayeka corrected.

“Rahkaze is here?! But he hates us!” Kayla exclaimed.

“Well, let’s not pretend you didn’t see this happening. I mean, you laid out the invitation right in front of him,” Natalia getting irritated. “didn’t say he would be here? So, I don’t know why everybody is surprised. If you really want him to make a complete fool out of himself, then congratulations. Phase one is complete. I can’t wait for phase two.”

To be honest, Kayla wanted at least Mordechai to show up at the event while having Rahkaze doing another no-show as he did at the banquet last year. And with Chloe being the face of the Holy Fire Bombing, is potentially bad publicity for the new syndicate.

“I have to go and speak to the grandmaster about this,” Kayla announced as Natalia consciously stopped her from going.

“Look, stop trying to micromanage every little thing and just let go. What’s done is done.”

“If he goes up on stage and starts shooting his mouth off, what then?” Kayla counterpointed.

“As I said before: you knew exactly what would happen if he would ever show up. What’s done is done, Kayla. Let the chips fall where they may.”

Suddenly, Kayla’s smartphone rings, and she answers the text, which sends her stomach in knots, “the media is here…”

“You can’t take it back now. He’s here, so you better go through with it,” Ayeka enforced.

“I know that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it!” Kayla recognized, leaving the floor.

Meanwhile, Olivia, Rahkaze, and Chloe started to roam the halls of the newly built facility. However, Rahkaze couldn’t shake off the nostalgia and déjà vu surrounding this new place. It didn’t take both to realize that the new syndicate and the restored mansion was just the way it was, brick for brick.

“Over here, we actually have fighting areas with state-of-the-art force fields. We always wanted to have that kind of stadium feel to it when you go to a professional wrestling show. So, we even added a few high definition cameras and plasma screen televisions so even people in the nosebleed section could watch the action.”

“Just like the good old days,” Rahkaze reminisced.

“Both of you were pretty good back in the day, along with your brother and Andrea. They even called you the Aethereal Winged Connection.”

“And not very long, they started to call us the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Rahkaze jokingly remembered.

Olivia sighed, “yes, it was a bit unfair to give all of you that label… When people hear the word apocalypse, they immediately referred to it as the end. To me, it’s more of a new beginning.”

“Not everybody likes new beginnings, Miss Olivia,” Chloe added.

“Indeed, neither do I. But it’s like I tell all my students, you cannot kill progress, and nothing stays the same. People, your environment, and your thoughts and feelings towards other people and yourself. At the end of the day, the world ends with you, and it’s up to you to either expand or stay small.”

This made Rahkaze feel a little bit better, “you always had a way with words, Miss Olivia.”

“My dear boy, I try,” Olivia gloated as her smartphone started to ring. Olivia received a text as she read it out loud, “CODE RED! CODE RED! EVERYONE MUST BE PRESENT IMMEDIATELY!”

“Always a control freak,” Rahkaze commented.

“She means well,” Olivia defended as she puts away her smartphone. “Shall we?”

Both Rahkaze and Chloe nodded in agreement as they make their way back to the party.