It took a minute for Alexia to arrive to the front door, she answered and looked shocked to see Agent Reynolds stand before her.
"Peter, is that you?" She asked.
"Hey Lexci, you look like you haven’t aged a bit." Agent Reynolds replies as he takes off his fedora a gently smiles out of sincere kindness.
The two embraced briefly, and she escorted Reynolds into the house.
"Please come in." She smiled. "Can I get you anything?" She asked as she guided him to the living room to sit.
"A cup of your famous joe would be nice right about now." He stated as he sat down.
"Of course, and I’ll get Ben." She said as she headed to the kitchen.
After giving Agent Reynolds his coffee, she goes to get Ben who looked nervous, as he realizes that there was nothing inside the box.
"Where is it?" Ben said nervously.
Alexia opens the door peeking her head into the room.
"Ben, we have a guest." She mentioned.
Ben quickly closes the box before his wife could see; sweat rolls down the side of his face.
"Who is it?" Ben asks.
"It's Peter."
Ben looks at Alexia surprised to hear her say Peter a longtime friend of his that he hasn’t seen in years. He knew that he worked for the Advant guard as an Agent; in fact he was grateful for saving his family all these years. He then pauses, trying to calculate every scenario as to why Peter was here. Of course, all his questions and thoughts led to one obvious reason, Kevin.
"I’ll get ready while you two catch up." She says. She looks at Ben who was nervous about what was going on. "Are you alright?" She asked nervous and concerned.
Ben shakes off his train of thought and puts the black box back on the shelf. He takes a deep breath and exhales calming himself down. He steps out of his office and locks the door behind using a digital pad lock. He turns to a patient Alexia wondering what he would do. He embraces Alexia and kisses her on the forehead.
"This won’t take long." He softly says.
Alexia smiles and heads up stairs to get dressed for Kevin’s graduation while Ben heads to the living room. He arrives to see Agent Reynolds enjoying his hot beverage in peace with his back facing Ben as he sits on the recliner. Ben clears his throat, which draws Reynolds’ attention. He carefully puts his coffee down on the table and looks back to see Ben standing at the entranceway of the living room.
"It really is you." Ben replied.
"It’s been a long time, my friend, too long." Agent Reynolds replies.
The two hugged and held tight as it was good to see each other. Reynolds pats him on the back. They let go and sit down in the living room.
"Have you been good?" Reynolds asks."
"Yes, this place is peaceful, like you said. Everyone keeps to themselves, and that’s what I prefer for my family."
The two then became silent, unsure of what to talk about. Ben wanted to know what Peter was here for, and Peter wanted to see if Ben had more information that he was hiding about Kevin. Peter then breaks the silence.
"So, I hear you have another kid; could he be a late bloomer too?" Reynolds mentions.
"Why are you here, Pete?" Ben asks, looking at him seriously.
"What, can’t I come by and see how my old friend is doing? Remember who helped you get here in the first place? " Reynolds replies sternly.
"Peter, you and I both know that someone of your rank wouldn’t be coming here unless it’s coming from the higher-ups. What are you doing here?" Ben asked again.
Agent Reynolds sighs as he brushes his hair back.
"Ben, they opened up your son’s case again. They were going to assign another agent, but I intervened and volunteered my services instead so I could warn you. They’re gonna find ways to bring out his ability, one way or another." Reynolds announced.
Ben was nervous again as sweat rolled down his face as he was right. He looks down disappointed for a second then looks back at Reynolds concerned.
"But I’ve been monitoring him since that night." Ben exclaims. "There is no sign of his powers emerging. What if I give you my work? Will that help?" He asked.
"Do you honestly think that will steer them away? They won’t be convinced until they have him." Reynolds replies.
Ben puts his hand on his forehead, worried and trying to come up with something to resolve this, but nothing seems to come up. He stops to look at Reynolds, upset.
"So what am I supposed to do, take my family and leave this place?" Ben asks rhetorically. "The Avant Guard is everywhere."
"He can stay with me." Reynolds offered.
Ben looks at Reynolds, surprised and upset that he would even think of such a thing. Reynolds notices and quickly stands up with his arms slightly raised, gesturing for Ben to calm down before he blows his top.
"Just hear me out. Reynolds mentioned. I’ll keep him hidden from the higher-ups, change his identity..."
"Pete, you’re asking me to expose my son to the Advant Guard in plain sight?" Ben asks, raising his voice. "Do you take me for a fool?"
Before Reynolds could answer Lexci walked in dressed up, makeup and all, wearing a white floral printed sun dress that stretched down to her knees with matching shoes. The two noticed and drew their attention to Lexci.
"Lexci, stunning dress on you." Reynolds compliments.
"Thank you, Peter." Lexci chuckled. She then looks at Ben. “Ben, we should be going, or else we’ll be late.”
"You and Brandon headed to the car; Peter and I were just wrapping things up. Isn’t that right, my friend?" Ben asks as he looks at Peter in a friendly gesture. Peter smiles as well so as not to look upset that Ben wasn’t going to take his offer.
"It was nice to see you again Lexci." he stated.
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"You too, Peter," she replied.
She calls for her youngest son, who comes downstairs in casual attire. She and Brandon head to the car outside the driveway while Ben escorts Peter out of the house, locking the house behind them.
"Just give it some thought, Ben," said Reynolds. "A time will come where not even our friendship can protect him."
Reynolds puts his hat back on and leaves for his car. Ben heads to his vehicle. As Ben entered the car, Lexci noticed he was looking nervous and upset as he was putting on his seatbelt while being lost in thought. She gently places her hand on his lap, causing him to snap out of his train of thought. He looks at her who was concerned about the well-being of her husband.
"You ok, dear?" she asks.
"Uh, yea. Everything is fine," he answers.
Ben looks up at his rearview mirror to see his youngest son playing games on his phone. Then he looks beyond him and sees Agent Reynolds backing out from the driveway and driving away. He sighs deeply.
"Just old friends catching up."
Ben starts up the car, and the family heads to the high school just in time as the graduation ceremony is underway. They found their spots and sat patiently waiting as the students were called up in alphabetical order to pick up their diplomas. When it was Kevin's turn, they all stood up and cheered for him as he picked up his diploma and shook hands with his Principal. The ceremony came to an end, and the students, like all traditions, threw their hats in the air. Soon all families and friends moved from inside the school, and all gathered outside, taking pictures, socializing, and saying their goodbyes. Kevin and his family were taking pictures when Johnny walked up to them.
"Kev, we gotta get going or else "you know who" will come after us," Johnny warns Kevin as they both know Sara would have their heads if they were a minute late. Kevin takes off his gown, still wearing his slacks, dress shirt, and tie, and gives the gown to his mother.
"Hey, I gotta go, but I'll see ya at the stadium." Kevin quickly said before he bolted to his motorcycle, where Johnny was waiting for him with his backpack in his hand.
Kevin boards the bike, and takes his backpack from Johnny, putting it on. It wasn't long till he started up his bike, and the two roads off onto the highway and towards the stadium. They drove past a large construction site where plans for more homes were going to be made, but the workers had to clear one more patch of the wooded area before they could really build anything. Unknown to them, was a large tree with a hollow opening; inside the tree was an old rusty metallic box partially opened. Inside that box, something was softly glowing. Several workers were using dozers to knock nearby trees down, while others were using chainsaws to try and finish the area as fast as they could before the sun went down. A couple of construction workers with chainsaws in their hands were walking towards the tree with the metallic box inside, construction workers started up their chainsaws and started working on cutting the really thick tree. The sound and vibrations coming from the chainsaw caused the tree to shake and vibrate. As the tree started to shake, it caused the lid of the metallic box to open wide, revealing a clear white stone that looked exactly like the stones from the various temples in the other world. The stone reacts as it felt it was in danger by an unknown threat and responds by glowing bright and emitting a type of small emp that causes the chainsaws to stop dead in their tracks. The workers were confused as to why their chainsaws stopped working and left to report their failed attempt to cut the tree down. Within the galaxy the beam of light was leaving the galaxy of the other world and entered into Earth’s despite its distance it sensed the stone on Earth and sends a signal as though it was asking for its location. Back on Earth, where Kevin resides, the stone in the tree senses the coming presence of the beam of light and emits a frequency like a call to alert the beam of its location, but it had to broaden its sound as it spreads throughout the county. The frequency of that sound couldn't be heard by just anyone. The sound spreads towards the stadium where the WVAMA was to begin. Kevin and Johnny were the last two in the male locker room as they finished putting on their padded bike uniforms representing their team colors and their individual numbers.
"Attention all racers, please report to the tracks. We will begin the race shortly. I repeat, all racers report to the tracks; we will begin the race shortly." The announcer reports as his message reached their locker."
"This is it," Johnny said as he grabbed his helmet. We got this in the bag."
Kevin picks up his helmet and prepares to leave until he starts hearing an odd high-pitched sound. It started out faint but then started to grow louder and louder. He stops in place.
"Hey, do you hear something?" Kevin asked, trying to decipher the type of high pitch noise.
Johnny was at the door, about to open it when he heard Kevin’s question. He looked back to see Kevin tilting his head, trying to hear the sound. He did the same; all he could hear was the music outside entertaining the crowd, the crowd in conversation, and the hustle and bustle of people getting ready for the race. Johnny shrugged his shoulders, giving up.
“I don’t hear anything but the crowd man,” Johnny said, annoyed. “Come on.”
Kevin decides to ignore the sound despite it constantly blaring in his ears. He heads to the door, but the sound starts getting louder and it started to hurt his ears.
“Damn, it’s getting louder,” Kevin said as he tried to block out the sound by covering one of his ears to see if that would help, but it didn’t make a difference.
Now the sound was loud and piercing, and the constant sound started giving him a headache. It was beginning to become too much for him to handle. He dropped his helmet as he covered his ears to try and block out the sound, but it started feeling as though the sound was blaring in his head. He yells in pain as his head is pounding and throbbing. Johnny looked back to see his friend, his ears covered and hunched over in pain. He rushes over to Kevin, trying to find out what is going on.
“Yo Kev, what’s wrong?” Johnny asked.
Kevin looks at Johnny wincing showing his friend how much pain he was in. Kevin could see his friend yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear him; all sounds were drowned out by the constant blaring high pitch tone in his ears. Kevin goes down on his knees, gritting his teeth in pain; he could feel every fiber of his body heating up.
"What’s happening to me?" Kevin thought to himself.
Confused, Johnny wasn’t sure how to help him. Kevin complained of noise that he couldn’t hear, and now he’s yelling as though someone is torturing him; he looks over Kevin up and down and sees nothing wrong physically.
“Kevin, come on, talk to me, man. Now is not the time to go crazy on me.” Said Johnny as he reached out to grab Kevin’s hand.
Once he touches Kevin’s hand, he gets shocked. Johnny reacts with a yelp and brings his hand back, shaking it to ease the pain.
"Damn it, what the hell?" Johnny yells.
As he tries to figure out what’s happening, the lights in the locker room begin to slowly flicker in and out. Johnny looks around, still trying to figure out what is happening right now as he feels everything is reacting because of Kevin. He looks back at his friend and sees glyph-like tribal markings all over his hands and face. They were glowing light yellow and flickering in and out in unison with the lights in the locker room. Johnny takes a couple of steps back as he realizes this exact moment reminds him of what happened at school the other day. He notices Kevin’s hands begin to glow with blue energy, which slowly builds. Kevin feels the intense heat from his body travel to his hands. As he brings down his hands, he looks at them as his glowing hands were getting brighter as the energy continued to build. He could feel the weight and heat of the energy in his hands as it was becoming too much.
"This isn’t good, I need to get rid of this energy." He said to himself.
Knowing that if he doesn’t do anything, he may create the same energy blast that Stewart did at the school, which could cause a large explosion catching people’s attention. He looked at the concrete floor and decided to expel the energy into the floor, but he then thought about Johnny. The energy in Kevin’s hands reached a level that looked unstable; Kevin didn’t have much time; his pupils began to glow blue; he looks at Johnny.
Johnny! Kevin yelled.
Johnny turns to see Kevin looking at him. Seeing his friend’s face covered in the glyph-like patterns, and his eyes beginning to glow was making him nervous.
"Johnny, take cover!" Kevin warned him as he placed his hands on the concrete.
Johnny quickly snaps out of it as he sees Kevin placing his hands on the ground. It was clear what Kevin was planning to do and quickly jumped on top of the wooden bench just in time as the reiki energy was released onto the concrete floor. Kevin’s energy spreads throughout the floor, the intense heat from the energy starts to heat up the concrete floor damaging it around him.