Pier 13 was shrouded in a thick, salty fog. In the distance, the silhouettes of cargo cranes looked like giant metallic monsters. Inside Warehouse 4, Ryuuichi Hanamitchi sat on a throne of wooden crates, surrounded by twenty elite guards in black suits. He was playing with a butterfly knife, his face twisted into a smirk.
"Keifer Watson should be here any minute," Ryuuichi muttered. "He'll come with his fancy cars and his tactical teams. And we'll blow them all sky-high."
Suddenly, the heavy metal doors of the warehouse creaked open. The guards raised their submachine guns.
But it wasn't a tactical team. It wasn't Keifer.
It was a six-foot-tall, neon-yellow, fluffy chicken.
The chicken (which was, of course, Ci-N) didn't just walk in. It began to do a high-energy K-Pop dance routine to a song playing from a Bluetooth speaker strapped to its chest.
"What... what is that?" Ryuuichi asked, his knife slipping from his fingers.
"Is it a bomb?" one guard whispered, trembling. "Is it a chemical weapon disguised as a mascot?"
Ci-N began throwing "eggs" (which were actually plastic balls filled with glitter and high-potency sneezing powder).
"BAWK BAWK, MOTHAF—" Ci-N yelled, his voice muffled by the beak. He started doing backflips. "YOU CANNOT KILL WHAT IS ALREADY FRIED!"
The guards were mesmerized. Some were laughing, some were confused, and some were genuinely terrified. Even Ryuuichi stood up, walking toward the yellow blur. "Who sent you?! Is this a prank? Is this Watson's idea of a joke?!"
While Ryuuichi and his men were busy watching a giant chicken do the Moonwalk, the real Section E was moving through the rafters like actual ninjas.
Felix and Edrix dropped down silently behind the guards, using zip-ties to secure them before they could even turn around. Josh was in the control room, disabling the security cameras and locking the exits.
Keifer and Jay-jay emerged from the shadows right behind Ryuuichi.
Ryuuichi spun around, reaching for his gun, but Jay-jay was faster. She didn't punch him—she simply held up a tablet showing his bank accounts, his secret offshore holdings, and a live feed of his grandmother's house.
"Your move," Jay-jay said, her eyes burning with that 'Mutya' authority. "You can try to fight us, or you can watch your entire empire vanish into the Watson cloud in the next ten seconds."
Ryuuichi looked at the tablet, then at Keifer (who looked ready to break his neck), then at the giant chicken that was now doing the Macarena over his fallen guards.
The "scary" Hanamitchi heir slowly raised his hands. "I... I give up. Just make the chicken stop dancing. Please. It's hurting my soul."
"Good choice," Keifer said, taking the butterfly knife from the floor. He turned to the mascot. "Ci-N, that's enough."
Ci-N pulled off the chicken head, gasping for air, his hair a sweaty, neon mess. "Did I do it, King? Did I save the day with my 'Pollo-Style' Kung Fu?"
"You were... surprisingly effective," Keifer admitted, though it clearly pained him to say it.
As the police (called by Josh) arrived to haul away the confused Vanguard members, the Section E crew stood outside on the pier. The sun was starting to rise, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange.
"We did it," Jay-jay said, leaning her head on Keifer's shoulder. "No blood, no broken bones. Just... a lot of yellow feathers."
"I'm billing you for the dry cleaning of my soul, Jay," Keifer joked, wrapping his arm around her.
"Hey! Group hug!" Ci-N screamed, still in his headless chicken suit, charging at them.
Felix, Edrix, and Josh joined in, surrounding the King and Queen of Section E. They were a mess—a billionaire, a Mutya, a group of misfits, and a giant bird—but as they looked out at the ocean, they knew that as long as they had each other, the "After Marriage" life was going to be the greatest adventure of all.
Two days after the "Great Poultry Heist," a delivery truck the size of a small house pulled up to Ci-N's apartment.
Ci-N ran downstairs in his pajamas, tripping over his own feet. There, standing by the truck, was a stone-faced Watson Group security guard holding a clipboard.
"Package for a Mr... 'Chicken Ninja'?" the guard asked.
Ci-N signed it with a trembling hand. Inside the first box was the Limited Edition Gold-Plated PlayStation 6, engraved with the Section E logo. Inside the second box was a lifetime supply of Super Spicy Ramen. And at the bottom, a small note from Keifer:
"Don't ever wear that suit in my presence again. But... good job, soldier. — K.W."
Ci-N began to sob tears of joy, hugging the gold console. "I KNEW THE KING HAD A HEART!"