(BL) Hunting The Field Guide - Chapter 428

Chapter 428: A brief visit to the front lines
Karen kinda missed not having a Guide around. Not because she wanted someone around her to be able to guide her whenever she needed it, but because she missed talking to Brent and Kellen.

Kellen had been a nice constant for years when she’d been on the front lines as a representative for the Saturn Guild. He’d always been so serious looking, and then he’d crack a silent joke every once in a while that would have her reeling as he walked away. She missed the moments where Kellen and Karen were still getting to know each other, and how their relationship had developed over the months while Kellen was getting ready to leave the front lines.

Honestly, Karen had been kind of looking forward to how their relationship, which had changed for the better in the last few months, would translate to the front lines. Instead of getting that right away, she got Brent.

Brent was hilarious, and a good comrade to have at her side. He was always cracking jokes, while also not taking shit from anyone like Kellen didn’t. It was strange to see how much of Kellen’s personality was just…being a good Field Guide, and how that translated to Brent.

With that said, that didn’t take away from either of them. She liked being told she wasn’t allowed to do things, and why. Karen was always the first to admit she was a dumb Esper and liked to be told she was wrong by Guides. She loved finding out that things she was doing weren’t right.

Maybe that reflected poorly on Karen, but…she just liked knowing that others cared about her actions and herself enough to criticize her when she did something wrong. So, sometimes she acted out, sometimes she sought comfort in another person’s arms. So what? She wasn’t hurting anyone. It was also something she knew she shared with Brent, which meant that they got along swimmingly.

It wasn’t lost on her how both her Captain and Kellen had people who were similar to each other at their sides. Karen didn’t want to brag, but she considered herself pretty close to the Captain, even if they didn’t call each other by their first names. He’d offered once, but Karen had just shrugged and said she liked to keep that small bit of barrier between them.

She felt like if she had allowed it, something would have shifted with their relationship. She didn’t know what it was, but…she didn’t have to find out right now.

Either way, Karen was having a fun time with Brent around and now that he had gone back with the rest of the first batch of new recruits, she was pretty bored. She’d gotten bored of one of her more common actions while she had no one to criticize her. She’d actually been getting tired of it even with people around to criticize her.

Karen was…Karen was feeling the settle down bug. She kept watching how Kellen and the Captain were with each other, how their relationship had developed over time and a deep sense of yearning filled her. She had been ignoring that tugging feeling in her guts for years, but now that she was faced with a good relationship all the time from two people she cared for and respected, she was hooped.

It was only made worse now that the group she was looking after on the front lines was so decreased. She found herself doing things she normally wouldn’t, like hanging out with Captain Sergei. He wasn’t her least favourite Captain, that was reserved for any young upstart who tried to come to their front lines thinking that everyone was going to roll over for them, and Captain Tom.

Always Captain Tom.

But Sergei wasn’t her favourite either. He was too quiet, and then, too observant. She didn’t like how it felt like he could see right through her. He made everyone except for a select few people feel uncomfortable, but Karen couldn’t really argue about their current situation.

While she was awkward having coffee dates with him in the morning, it was part of their new routine until those fuckers who just came to the front lines fucked up. All because of a prediction that Kellen made.

That was something that pretty much no one else knew. Karen assumed Kellen’s parents knew, because she didn’t think Kellen kept much from his family. Well, maybe he did, but unlike her, he had a supportive family so she was a little salty about that. She also knew Captain Thatcher, and the man had looked and sounded like he was spiraling when she had spoken to him.

He was not taking this new development well.

Karen hadn’t joked about it, but she did think it was strange. She had never heard about this happening to any other couple. Was Captain Thatcher just that good of a fuck? If that was the case, why hadn’t anyone else had this happen to them? Or had they, but they hadn’t brought it up?

It was strange, but then again, Kellen felt like he was the kind of guy who could handle having both powers. He was strong enough. It would also be pretty fucking sick if he could use his powers, and then guide himself. Self-sustaining Esper powers?

The E.A.G. would hate his damn guts.

So, Karen kept everything to herself, bit her tongue, and sat outside of the D.E.C. building on the front lines which was across from the cantina, and had a little morning coffee date with Captain Sergei.

Karen had found a metal table and some chairs tucked away inside of the D.E.C. basement and had done her best to make them look like they had always been outside, just to the right of the doors. Sergei had been a help with his powers, making it look like they weren’t recently placed there as well.

They had had this plan before Kellen had warned them, the warning just told them what time they should be outside here, and that they needed to replace the people working inside before they got here.

Karen, who was used to the suddenness of Captain Thatcher’s predictions, was expecting that it was going to happen the next day. Hell, that was what normally happened with Rhys. But that wasn’t the case.

She had to sit across from Sergei for a few days, and even Karen was having a hard time coming up with topics to talk about. She had no idea how Brent did it. She also didn’t want to admit that he was more social than she was, since she knew that wasn’t the case. Maybe the other man just had a crush on the other Captain? Was that how he was able to pull answers out of the man?

Karen was having a terrible time doing so. They always talked about the damn weather, and Karen was getting sick of it. It wasn’t like she could ask about his Guild. They were from rival Guilds, even if they didn’t have any true animosity between each other. The man still chose to name his Guild the Nemesis Guild. That should stand for something.

Thankfully, it was Captain Sergei himself who helped Karen out. He began to ask about how the Field Guides were doing, a topic that could be spoken about, especially in public. That was when Karen spoke about the training program that she had seen Kellen create and execute and how well they were doing.

She spoke about how they had been coming through for a taste of the front lines, to get to know what they were actually training for. She spoke about how he had probably had a few interactions with them, but also how proud Kellen was of all of them. How back at the Guild they were divided into an advanced class and a regular class, but how on the front lines that didn’t matter since they all came to the front lines with the same level of education, and how Kellen had executed that as well.

She loved talking about them because it was something that everyone on the front lines needed, and could appreciate. The only people who didn’t realise how important Field Guides were, were idiots who didn’t last long on the front lines in two ways, or those who had enough money that it didn’t need to matter. They could just hire enough cannon fodder.

Captain Sergei sat there, listening, a small smile on his face as he did so. Karen was worried that she was boring him, that he wasn’t actually that interested in what she was talking about, but he ended up surprising her.

He told her that he had asked the same question to Brent, and he had gone on a huge rant about Kellen, and how he was able to pull this program out of his ass and execute it like the genius that he was. How he had doubted if ‘fru fru’ Guides were ever going to adapt to the way of Field Guides, but he had been proven wrong.

For the Guild’s Guides sake, Karen felt a little hurt, but she also understood. She was one of the Espers who worked almost exclusively on the front lines. She knew how to act around normal Guides, she wasn’t some kind of demon or E.A.G. member. She knew how to say please and thank you and smile normally, but she did love how the Field Guides out here treated her. She was treated like she was their favourite treat all because she wasn’t insane.

When she went back home? Sometimes she saw how some of the Guides looked at her. Like they were scared that she would break their hand or other parts of them if they did higher level guiding.

It stung, she wouldn’t lie, but…yeah. She had been noticing a change in the Guides ever since Kellen rolled into the Guild. Well, more like was carried into the Guild. The attitude had shifted, probably because he’d beaten a few Guides, more likely because his influence on his students had been spreading to everyone in the Guiding Division.

It was a good thing that they were gaining confidence, and not in the same bad way that had caused several Espers to almost Surge.

That was what Captain Sergei and Karen talked the most about. How confidence could change a Guide, and in a good way.

They were having that discussion when all hell broke loose, and Kellen’s prediction came true.