Have you ever witnessed an epic, chaotic battle at school during lunchtime?
I did when I was in elementary school.
Back then, I never imagined that grown adults could recreate that exact brand of madness. But apparently, when it comes to the supernatural, people sometimes completely lack basic maturity and decorum.
Cheeseburgers, chicken tenders, and french fries flew through the air as agents actively brawled over my fate.
Half of them were shouting that I should be locked in a cage, a few were arguing I should be executed on the spot, and the rest wanted to keep me alive and trust the prophecy.
Through all the barbarism, the Chief didn't even lift a finger to stop it. He just watched the chaos unfold with that shifting, faceless blur of his.
I looked to Henry for guidance, but he just stared at me and shrugged. Even after four months, he still couldn't bring himself to care all that much.
At least Jacob tried to shield me from a flying soda, while Julie looked like she was a second away from throwing a punch at a rival squad member.
Finally, the Chief reached over, casually stole a stray fry from Layla's plate, and decided to de-escalate the commotion.
"Calm down, calm down," his husky voice echoed, effortlessly cutting through the noise.
"I am the Chief here, which means I decide what we do with him. And my decision is made. He will work for us. We will not harm or imprison him. Only a small fraction of his biology matches those monsters. Overall, he's a decent kid. Besides, his powers require further awakening and he is currently weaker than most of you, which is exactly why you shouldn't be fighting him."
Damian, the rival squad leader from before, interjected with a sharp smirk.
"The old man has a point," Damian said, pointing a mocking finger at me as he held back a fit of laughter.
"I mean, look at him. My sister is bigger than him, and she's six. The boy is so scrawny that if he didn't have the abilities of the Child of the Prophecy, he'd get jumped by a gang of kindergartners."
That stung a little, I have to admit.
I always knew I was on the shorter, leaner side, but even after four months of brutal physical training... I was still a bit of a twerp.
At least his insult convinced everyone I wasn't an immediate threat, which effectively stopped the food from flying. The cafeteria looked like a complete disaster area.
I could have sworn I heard the Chief snicker at Damian's colorful comment about my physique.
The room quieted down significantly afterward, making me realize that Damian held an immense amount of authority within the facility, second only to the Chief himself.
"Furthermore," the Chief continued, his tone shifting into something strictly serious.
"Even if the boy were built like a professional basketball player, we have confirmed he poses no threat. If things change drastically, I will personally intervene. For now, I order all of you to keep this information strictly confidential. Do not spread a word of this to other branches, especially those of you who maintain contacts within the London Section."
He directed a pointed glare at Julie.
She immediately looked away, making me wonder what kind of specific history she had with the London branch.
"He will remain with the Black Team," the Chief concluded, turning to leave. "As an active agent, he is to be respected and welcomed. Please, try not to bully the kid."
I wasn't even surprised by his final warning, considering I was standing in a room full of lethal, grown-ass adults who had just thrown a collective temper tantrum with fast food.
As you can probably guess, every interaction that followed with the other agents was completely different.
Some people were genuinely nice. Take Miriam, a scientist and medic for the Blue Team, she went out of her way to show me she wasn't against my presence.
Others, however, were downright hostile.
Damian, for example, loved to get under my skin, despite being a twelve years older than me.
One afternoon, I was standing by the first-floor vending machines trying to grab a bottle of water when he approached with a smug grin.
Without a word, he gave me a hard shove, sweeping my feet and sending me crashing flat onto the linoleum floor.
Just as Henry had hammered into my head a thousand times, my raw physical strength was severely lacking. As the Child of the Prophecy with unawakened abilities, I was extraordinary at combating Entities, but an absolute disaster at fighting standard humans.
Dropping me was incredibly easy.
As I sat there on the floor, Damian just laughed and walked away, completely satisfied with bothering me for no reason at all. If I had the level of power I control right now, I thought bitterly, I probably would have blasted him straight through the window.
Despite the constant light jabs and the heavy lack of trust from the general staff, I kept my head down.
I spent my free time training and studying the most common Entity classifications, alongside the history of Yuri, their self-appointed dictator.
By the time early spring arrived, our squad finally caught a five-person deployment, my very first official mission.
My anxiety was through the roof.
Both Henry and the Chief had warned me to stay hyper-alert, explaining that it wouldn't be long before the Entities caught wind of my existence and hunted me down. We were in our tactical office prepping our gear. Jacob was aggressively churning out push-ups on the floor, muturing an inaudible chant to himself.
Julie sat cross-legged in the center of the room with her eyes closed.
When I tried to step closer, her eyelids snapped open, delivering a glare sharp enough to cut through steel.
Henry was methodically loading heavy magazines with specialized rounds meant exclusively for monsters and anomalies. He looked completely unapproachable.
"Don't sweat it. They're always like this before a drop."
I turned around to find Layla standing behind me, carefully packing bandages, chemical vials, and sedative pills into her tactical medical pack.
"Are they always this nervous?" I asked, keeping my voice low.
"Nope. That's not nervousness, Nico, it's preparation," Layla said with a reassuring smirk.
"Think of it like a singer warming up their vocal cords before hitting the stage. If you don't prime your system, you can't give it your all."
"Do you sing?"
"I prefer the guitar," she replied, turning back to secure her medical equipment.
I genuinely liked Layla. Unlike the rest of the facility, she never looked at me like I was a freak of nature or a reckless teenager. She chose to see the good in me, and because of that, we had grown close rather quickly.
Shaking off the nerves, I started prepping my own inventory.
I pulled a cold can of Monster energy from the fridge and chugged the entire thing; by now, I knew that the massive surge of sugar and caffeine kept my eye condition completely stable, even if the illness felt more like a curse than a medical diagnosis with each passing day.
Next, I shoved a few bags of Sour Patch Kids into my pack alongside a set of tactical knives. Henry had trained me extensively with blades because I couldn't safely channel my raw abilities all at once yet; pushing too hard risked making me lose control entirely.
Once our gear was locked down, we exited the office and headed out to the subterranean garage, where a completely blacked-out transport van was idling. Henry climbed into the driver's seat, Layla claimed shotgun, and I was tightly squeezed into the back row between Jacob and Julie, who were both silently scanning coordinates on their phones.
"So... what's the drop location?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"Audubon Park," Julie answered without looking up.
Henry nodded from the front, shifting the van into drive.
"Keep your ears open," he commanded. "We're responding to a localized anomaly. Lately, young kids have been vanishing from local schools, only to mysteriously turn up in the park hours later. They have zero memory of their lives and possess a deep, jagged scratch mark along the nape of their necks. Marie classified it as a Grade B anomaly, so it should be a straightforward sweep."
"Who's Marie?" I asked, realizing I hadn't heard that name yet.
"Oh, right, we forgot to brief you," Jacob said, reaching into a small compartment in the door panel and tossing me an earpiece.
"She's our primary dispatcher. She monitors telemetry and coordinates our movements from the tech hub at headquarters. Put that in so you can establish a comms link."
I slipped the small device into my ear.
The moment it clicked into place, a mature, steady female voice echoed in my ear canal. The rest of the squad clearly shared the frequency.
"Good evening, Child of the Prophecy," the voice said, warm but professional.
"We haven't had the pleasure of an official introduction yet. I'll be handling your tactical feed from headquarters tonight, consider me your secondary set of eyes and ears. Just call my name, and I'll have your back."
Marie paused for a brief moment, the faint sound of typing clicking through the line.
"Telemetry confirms a Class B anomaly is currently active within Audubon Park.
Exact grid coordinates are still fluctuating. To date, sixteen children have been abducted and returned with total amnesia and localized trauma to the back of the neck. Your objective is standard protocol: secure the perimeter, locate the anomaly, and neutralize it. Paranormal activity across New Orleans is registering as unusually 'low' tonight, meaning external Entity interference is highly unlikely. The park has already been cleared and closed to the public. Good luck, Black Team."
The squad offered a collective nod.
The remainder of the drive went entirely silent.
But it wasn't long before the van slowed to a crawl, and Henry killed the headlights.
We had arrived