(BL) Hunting The Field Guide - Chapter 160

Chapter 160: A century of change Chapter 160: A century of change “Did you know that the first person to awaken their powers was an S Class Esper of physical strengthening?

Do you know how he awakened?

When he did?” Kellen shook his head, and a slight smile touched the Captain’s lips.

“He crushed the arms of his daughter as he tried to protect her from a monster racing at them.” Horror crossed Kellen’s face at the reveal.

“He surged immediately since he was so overwhelmed by what he had done, but thankfully, he directed it towards the monsters.

He was also the first person to close a gate, but because no one followed him in, we had no idea how to close gates until much later.

When someone survived after destroying a core and made it out alive.

Tragic, isn’t it?

That his story got erased so quickly, even though he was so important to humanity?” Rhys had a self deprecating smile on his face, and Kellen’s chest filled with despair.

This wasn’t where he had wanted his thoughts to go.  “That is devastating.” Kellen agreed.

Rhys smiled, pressing a kiss against his cheek.  “Right?

His daughter survived, in case you were wondering.

It’s why we even have a recounting of his story.

But his whole story brings up a lot of questions, and has for years.

What makes someone an S Class Esper?

How do we create them?

Why did this man turn into a monster when all he wanted to do was protect his daughter?” Kellen wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear from him.  “I don’t know.

I just always assumed it was a mutation to protect ourselves, like everyone else.” Kellen said, and the look that Rhys gave him…it wasn’t quite pity, but it felt along those lines.

Kellen felt himself stiffen defensively.  “It’s traumatic situations, Kellen.

Every S Class Espers I have ever spoken to has had something truly awful happen to them just before they had awoken.

Something that meant that they had no one else to rely on for help.

A life or death situation.

That is what makes S Class Espers.” Kellen felt his blood run cold, and he was sure he had gone very pale.  Even Sergei and Sakura?

From what Kellen remembered, Sakura had a relatively normal childhood, and she had never been out of school until the week she awakened as an Esper.

But…who was he to say that bullying wasn’t traumatic?

He hadn’t paid close enough attention to her when they were younger, and only tried to avoid her because she was always challenging him to fights or trying to bench press him.

Sergei was an unknown, since he truly only knew him from doing a couple of jobs with him.

He had always been kind, but Sergei’s looks and powers tended to freak others out.

He did have several piercings, and was ghostly pale. And he tended to have his lieutenants speak for him if he could.  “A-Are you sure?” Kellen asked.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the Captain.

He knew he was the type to do a thorough investigation into something before declaring it a fact, but his heart ached at the implications here.  “My sweet little Kellen.

You know that I wouldn’t tell you this with such confidence if I hadn’t triple checked the results myself.

Even S Class Guides had very similar stories, but were slightly off.

It usually involved a surging Esper, or a situation that felt hopeless.

But, it seems that S Class monsters don’t come from very happy homes.” His smile was bittersweet and Kellen felt his heart breaking.  “Stop saying that about yourself.” He whispered, pressing his forehead against Rhys’ shoulder.

Rhys wrapped his hand around Kellen’s neck, holding him in place.

The warmth of his fingers leached into Kellen’s skin.  “You know what also tends to happen when an S Class awakens?

A gate opens.” Kellen blinked slowly, surprised, and Rhys continued.

“A ludicrous statement, right?

To think that the awakening of a mere human could be related to a new gate.

But is it too far-fetched?

Why did the gates begin appearing, anyway?

It’s almost been a century since the first one appeared, so why do they keep appearing?

Why did they show up in the first place?

What caused this all to happen?” Stunned, Kellen didn’t know what to say.  He had never even thought to question why the gates had shown up.

He was only worried about clearing them and making sure everyone he cared about stayed safe.

Maybe that made him a simple person, but why would he have worried himself about something that was above his pay grade?

He had been too busy worrying about his own life and his companions to even have such deep thoughts.  “I-I don’t know.

I’ve never thought about this before.” He admitted, slightly ashamed and the Captain gave his neck a squeeze, kissing his temple.  “Ah, I’m not saying this for you to feel bad.

I just wanted to share what we discussed.

Lots of big topics, and I feel like it flew over some of the heads that were there.

But the oldest among us, an SS Class, had quite a few theories about it.

They told me they were surprised that I wasn’t an SS Class given that what I had awoken into was similar to how they had awoken.

They even suggested that within a millisecond of getting my powers, I had seen the possibility of becoming an SS Class, and had chosen the path with less insanity.

A truly ridiculous statement, but it had been a compelling thought at the time.”  Listening to Rhys talk, he was clearly quite fond of this person, and this event.

He wondered how long ago it had happened.

And if any of the members there were still alive.

Not many made it into old age, and either died in combat, or surged into their untimely death.

Kellen hoped that wasn’t the case for the SS Class he spoke fondly of, but knowing their track record….

“That SS Class believed that there was a greater plan going on.

Something was messing with our planet.

Whether it be aliens, gods, or something we couldn’t even begin to comprehend, but, we all agreed on something.

The monsters coming out of the gates probably weren’t that much different from us.” Kellen wanted to protest again, and even sat up to do so, but Rhys covered his mouth.  “Kellen, you’ve noticed it, right?

The new gates that are appearing, the fluctuating gates are getting stronger, harder to defeat.

The gates that are far more prone to exploding keep getting more and more difficult.

We’ve already seen an increase in gates exploding in the last ten years.

So, we as the S Class Espers, made a plan.

We let some of the lower Class gates explode, just to see what happened.” Kellen’s glare was serious.  That wasn’t something to joke about, and as punishment for silencing him, he sunk his teeth into Rhys’ hand.

Hard.

Rhys at least had the decency to flinch.  “It didn’t lower the difficulty of any of the gates that began to appear, like we had hoped.

In fact, more gates began to appear.

Our test lasted barely a year before we ended it.

We cannot let gates explode.

I know that sounds silly for me to say.

No one wants gates to explode, but we hadn’t been sure before.

Now?

We can’t let the gates explode.

The more that they do, the harder the monsters fight to escape them into our world.

It’s a hostile takeover, Kellen.

We think that the gates that appear on our world are from other worlds who lost the battle and were taken over by exploded gates of their own.”  Kellen was stunned.

He wasn’t even sure what to say to that.

Hostile takeover?

Exploded gates?

The Captain had let the gates explode as an experiment?

The monsters coming out of gates were from a world that had failed to stop the gates?

That all sounded too far-fetched to his ears.  Rhys’s soft chuckle above Kellen broke through his shock.  “It’s alright.

I know it’s a lot to take in.

Just consider it the ramblings of the half-crazed.

That SS Class died about three weeks later after their Guide was targeted by a hate group and died.

We’ll never get to hear more of their thoughts.”  A different, separate dawning horror filled Kellen.

If the SS Class Esper that the Captain was talking about had died after their pair had been targeted and kidded, there was only one SS Class Esper that he knew who that had happened to in recent history.  It was four years ago when the case was broken to the media.

It had been a shocking, and horrifying ordeal.

The reason why had been that they, too, had been poster children for imprints, but on a different scale.

Their courtship had been on an international scale, since they came from different countries.

They were a symbol of hope for everyone.  But to Kellen, they had been his Uncle Felix, and Uncle Jason.  They had been old companions of his Mom and Dad.

Uncle Jason was the first SS Class Esper he’d ever met, and everyone had been hesitant to have him around children.

There was a photo where Kellen was holding onto his finger, and Uncle Jason was in tears.

Normally, kids had been afraid of him.

But not Kellen.

He’d loved his Uncles, even if he hadn’t gotten to see them often.  It was why his Mom had snuck out to the front lines without his Father’s knowledge to break the news to him personally.

Uncle Felix had been kidnapped and killed, and instead of surging, Uncle Jason had taken himself out of the picture without harming others.

His Mom had seemed shocked, but also as if she had been prepared to hear the news for her whole life.

It had been heartbreaking to hear, and Kellen still had a hard time wrapping his head around it.

He didn’t talk about it often, since it stirred such deep emotions.

The last four years without them had been hard.

CREATORS’ THOUGHTS CalyB Thank you for reading!