Chapter 335: One attack down, two to go

Kellen waited anxiously. Today was the day that the groups went out to their respective cities and not only scouted, but caused some...discourse. Of course, it would be tinged with each respective Esper’s personality when it came to who was in charge, so Kellen was a bit worried about what was going to happen.

He was honestly not worried about Rhys and his people. Kellen had been the most involved with his research and knew who Rhys was on a deeply personal level. The man was going to be fine, his mission was going to be fine, and Kellen had not seen any visions that would dictate otherwise.

Kellen wasn’t even that worried about Uncle Parker, either. There was a little bit of worry considering that the town that they had casually selected for Uncle Parker turned out to have deeper, more dangerous tendrils of the E.A.G. then they thought, but he trusted Uncle Parker.

If anything, he was the most worried about his Mom compared to any one else. Since the time with Colby, something had shifted in her. Even his Dad had noticed but he hadn’t pulled Kellen aside to speak. Kellen did notice that he spent a considerable amount of time talking to Aunt Dina about it. Or, at least that was what he thought they were talking about.

He wanted to speak to his Mom about it. He wasn’t normally the kind of man who got nervous to confront someone about their odd, anxious, snappy behaviour, but it was his Mom. His Mom who he loved and cared for and who the last time he’d seen this behaviour had been when his Dad was injured and unable to guide her.

He really hoped it wasn’t something related to that, since his Dad was in good health and he’d been quietly sending some of his guiding power to her whenever they were in the same room.

The town that she ended up with had nothing too obvious going on. Kellen hadn’t been able to find anything, nor had the team that had been put in charge of her area as well. That did concern him, but his Mom was good at her job. She had been doing missions like this for forever.

Maybe she was just nervous because his Dad wasn’t coming with her? He didn’t know.

He only knew that everyone else was feeling a bit nervous because of her own attitude.

Kellen sat back in his chair, sighing as it creaked. He wasn’t the only one in here, some of the other members of the research team, mostly Guides, huddled around the table as they watched a few live feeds and listened in on the radios.

It had been a small conference room that Aunt Dina rarely used, something tucked away to the side, but no one had really known what to make of it. Kellen had taken it and transformed it into the homebase for the researchers that it was.

Originally, the plan had been to keep the research teams separate. Operate completely away from the others, but because Kellen couldn’t keep his own hands in one basket, that just didn’t happen. Kellen had also pointed out that the E.A.G. didn’t operate like completely different entities and that they would need any upper hand information that they could get.

It made getting items for this room far easier.

They had planned to do smaller tables, like little stations, for each researcher to give them some privacy as they worked. Kellen said absolutely not and got them a rather large table, but a practical one. Not too wide, but long enough to fit almost all of the researchers at one table. He’d also gotten them good, comfortable chairs, the rolling office kind, which made it easier to show each other something if they needed a second opinion.

Kellen had also gotten a delivery service set up with the cafe on the main floor. He had originally planned to ask for a small coffee and tea station, but his Aunt, and Rhys, had scoffed at the idea.

They had a cafe, just take advantage of it.

Kellen hadn’t been told the same thing in the Saturn Guild, but Rhys pointed out something important. The culture of the cafe in their building was coffee forward, while the cafe here wasn’t. Kellen had gotten different kinds of teas here, where back home he’d only ever gotten matcha drinks. That was true, even if Kellen hadn’t been aware of it.

Either way, he didn’t argue much, letting them help, and now, here they were.

He was waiting for his people to land in their designated locations, fuck shit up, and then come home.

Kellen didn’t feel terrible about it. His gut wasn’t screaming that something was going to go wrong, he wasn’t sweating or seeing any visions. He was...sure that things were going to go smoothly.

"Fuck, this is torture." Brent muttered. He leaned back in his chair, both of his arms behind his head in a casual position as he scowled at the radio. Kellen glanced at him and almost smirked.

Brent had really come out of his shell since he’d gotten his prosthetics. That wasn’t to say he had been reserved until now. He was still Brent, no matter what, but he had opened up to the rest of the Guild and the members who were helping out quite a bit.

He was more outspoken, he felt like he could do more. His workouts had gotten more intense, and there was a brightness to his countenance that Kellen hadn’t been aware that he’d been missing, but now that it was back? Kellen was just glad that he was feeling better.

He was also pushing back more against how the Espers were treating him. He had taken to wearing gloves again just to hide what hand was fake and what was real. Kellen had actually taken the glove idea from Brent, but he didn’t hide which hand was still injured.

It was mostly healed at this point, it was just his eye and his sister who was still unwell.

"You’re right that the waiting sucks. At least Sergei gets to do gorilla warfare close to home." Kellen said. Brent smirked, chuckling, before he shook his head.

"Don’t say that. It’s not all roses, Kellen. It might feel like he is able to do more than others, but he has to be far more careful with each of his actions." Brent sighed heavily. "Just yesterday, he helped a few old people across the street and had to pretend that he was a big, bad Esper. They were obviously distraught that they couldn’t reward him properly." Kellen remembered that incident.

What Brent was referring to as ’helped a few old people across the street’ was far from that. If he remembered correctly, Sergei had actually flung several older city Espers across the street and into a police station. The station had barely survived in one piece. Sergei had then apparently dropped off a paper that listed several crimes that the older Espers had committed to the damaged police station, and then had rained down more of those papers onto the on-lookers.

Yeah, no doubt that they wouldn’t want to reward him, or couldn’t. They had been the ones covering it up, and now the public was aware of some of the crimes the Espers in the city were committing.

Kellen had been surprised to hear about the actions that Sergei had taken. He didn’t think the man had a flair for dramatics, but now that he was hearing Brent recount it, he knew who had come up with the idea. Brent had his hands all over it. Dramatics? That was all Brent.

"Uh huh. How tragic that they weren’t able to thank him properly." Kellen said dryly and Brent nodded in agreement.

"Right? I was devastated for my poor baby. Just looking at his eager face, only for it to fall because he didn’t get thanked? How could they be so cruel?" Kellen almost laughed. He managed to keep it inside, but he could see that a few of the researchers were looking at Brent like he had two heads.

Half of the team were Guides, the partners of several of the S Classes that were on the teams, while the other half were Espers themselves.

All of them knew Sergei in some regard. Sergei had been coming to the S Class meetings for a while, and Sergei’s Guild, like Rhys’, worked internationally as well. Sergei just didn’t have a Pamela who was working tirelessly to make the Saturn Guild a big deal everywhere. Even without a gate under their Guild’s name.

Though, one could argue that the poison gate was under the Saturn Guild’s name, but Kellen wasn’t going to point that out to anyone until Gwen woke up.

The Espers were giving Brent a look like he had two heads, like he was insane, and like Brent clearly didn’t know what he was talking about. If Kellen hadn’t been spending time with Brent and Sergei together, he might have been looking at them the same way.

He’d also seen how Sergei’s persona of a cold, quiet man had slipped around Rhys before Brent came into his life. He was a quiet man, that part would probably always be true, but he had an incredible sense of humour and he smiled more often than people gave him credit for. It just wasn’t a big smile, but a quiet one, like the quietly devoted man that he was.

He was less quiet around Brent. More honest and open because that was what Brent needed from him. Kellen found it actually very sweet that he had a nickname for Brent in his own language. He’d looked it up, because he was curious, and found that it meant bunny. Brent, when Kellen asked, hadn’t looked it up.

Kellen wasn’t going to tell him, keeping it a secret between Sergei, Rhys and Kellen. He knew that Brent would be a little embarrassed when he heard the truth about his nickname, and Kellen was excited to hear him rant to him about it when he did.

Their brief banter was cut off as the radio static flipped and voices could be overheard. Uncle Parker had arrived at his destination and the team in charge of comms spoke to him. Brent and Kellen’s expression grew serious as they listened. Almost everyone in the room had experience with this kind of thing, and they all waited.

Uncle Parker’s, the more serious of the three, went off without a hitch. They did find some surprising things, dangerous things, but with Uncle Parker’s darkness power, they were able to handle it. The Espers were apprehended without much issue, but they did find some Guides that were...

Well, they were children.

Kellen’s jaw was tight, his hands fisted before Brent reached over and took his hand in his.

"We’ve got them." Brent told him firmly. "They’ll be fine." Brent reminded him and Kellen nodded. It was just...awful. He hated it. He hated being right in this regard.

Uncle Parker gathered evidence, burnt the damn place to the ground, and escaped. It was quite a statement, but that was exactly what they were doing. They wanted to make statements and make the E.A.G. squirm.

They’d declared war, and they were doing it.