Blessed by Night

Sei threw open the door and walked outside with her eyes stinging. Despite her clear wish not to be followed, she could feel Joanne hot on her heels.

"Please, just leave me alone..."

"I'm not going to do that." Joanne insisted.

"You don't even know them, Jo! I get you have a history with like military stuff or whatever, but my parents are just normal working people! Not some kind of domestic terrorists!"

Joanne caught up to Sei rather easily with her powers. She placed her hands on her shoulders and ensured that she had nowhere else to run.

"You're right, I don't know them, but there are too many details that just don't make any sense.

Why are they staying in that building instead of heading to a safe zone?

What are they doing with so many Evolved hanging around, and why are they all taking orders from your parents?"

"I told you, my dad used to own a company! H-He's just used to leading people, I guess! It's not different from what we were doing together!"

Joanne's face contorted in pain. Sei wasn't like this.

She was innocent, and perhaps a little timid sometimes, but she wasn't a fool.

Sei should have been able to see the glaringly obvious when it was pointed out like this. And Joanne had no idea why she couldn't.

"Why are you fighting me on this..? I'm not trying to hurt you, I only-"

"I just got them back, Jo... After twenty years, I got to sit across from my parents and talk to them about my life a-and my dad listened, and he-"

"Twenty years ago, you were broke, single, and and just had a baby in an entirely different country, and he treated you like garbage when you called him for help! Why are you so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he didn't even have the decency to make sure you didn't starve??"

"B-Because people change, Joanne! I would think that you would know that better than anyone!" Sei wept.

"I do know that." Joanne wiped Sei's face while trying not to let her own tears spill out. "I'm just trying to protect you."

"From what? Having my parents in my life again?? Because you think they might be terrorists?"

Joanne bit down on her bottom lip and looked away.

Sei recognized the fact that she was trying to hold herself back from saying something, but she was too riled up. She wanted to hear it.

"Just say it!"

Joanne finally slipped and let a tear fall. She dropped her head to the ground and spoke in a voice that was barely audible.

"I'm sorry... I just don't trust them. I think... no, I'm sure, that the only reason why they were so accepting of your return was because you came back married to the most powerful Evolved in the world."

Out of everything Joanne had said, that one probably hurt Sei the most.

It thoroughly cracked the illusion she had locked herself inside of.

At the meeting earlier, Sei thought she had noticed her father staring at Malachi quite often.

She thought it was normal father stuff. Just one man sizing up the male his daughter had chosen to be with.

But what if it wasn't that at all...?

What if the reason he had said all those nice things, defended them from her mother, and gave his approval for their relationship all had something to do with him wanting power?

What was she supposed to do with herself then..?

If her parents had never cared about her, then why did she even bother coming back here to look for them?

She felt unbearably stupid.

"Can you just.. let me go please?" Sei asked quietly.

Even though Joanne knew she shouldn't, she couldn't help but acquiesce.

She backed away despite her mind telling her not to.

Sniffling, Sei turned around and headed down a separate hallway by herself.

Joanne watched her go with a mind full of regrets. Her every inclination screaming to her that perhaps she could have handled things so much better.

-

The doors to the bridge slid open with an audible hiss.

Malachi and Luna came in together, wearing similar expressions of exhaustion.

"Please tell us you've got something, boys and girls... We need something to focus on that's outside of this ship."

Evaline, Loki, and Zeke looked up from their consoles at the grim faces of the two newlyweds.

"Trouble in paradise already?" She chuckled.

"More like trouble we stumbled into accidentally." Malachi dismissed. "Just say you've got something for us."

"You're in luck."

Ezekiel pulled up a blue map on a monitor and projected it so that Malachi and Luna could see.

There were four dots located on the map. The screen showed them blinking and projecting a red pulse into the surrounding area.

"We took a blood sample from Mrs. C and had this flying supercomputer of yours run it through an analysis. I'm afraid we're still waiting on a full list of components, but the good thing is that we managed to find where it's coming from."

Ezekiel pointed to the four sites of interest that the computer had picked out.

"And these places are...?" Luna questioned.

"Looks like some old farmland, a sewer system, a water treatment plant, and an offshore wind farm."

Luna turned towards her husband and folded her arms. "...I'm not going in a sewer."

"You didn't even give me an opportunity to ask you anything!"

"Fine, go ahead and ask me."

"Babe, do you want to check out the-"

"No." Luna smiled

She grabbed a lock of her hair from behind her back and dangled it in front of Malachi's face.

"What part of this color says 'adventure in sewers' to you?? I'd probably never be able to get myself clean after I go down there."

"I think you're missing out. All the crazy and cool stuff happens in sewers."

Luna rolled her eyes. "Please don't use comic book logic on our real-life expeditions."

Malachi pursed his lips.

"Look, just take Anna. She loves all that tomboy stuff." Luna reminded.

"She's not a big explorer type though… neither is B or Nadine for that matter." Malachi rubbed his chin.

As if a bomb had gone off, Malachi suddenly looked up with a new light in his eyes.

Since she knew him so well, Luna could instantly tell what her husband was thinking.

"Absolutely not." She denied.

Malachi was already backing away.

"Malachi Jadou Saint."

"Love you, babe, be back soon!"

Malachi turned into a bolt of lightning and ran back down the hallway.

Luna floated off her feet and flew after him as fast as she was able to.

None of their three ride-alongs had the foggiest idea of what they were even arguing about.

- A few minutes later…

Malachi ripped off a manhole cover and chucked it over his shoulder.

"Alright, are you ready to go exploring, munchkin?"

Behind him, Camille was decked out in a little hazmat suit made from shadows.

Her axolotl perched on top of her head cutely.

It's eyes said that it was clearly stressed about the decisions that were about to be made going forward.

Camille reached for the princess colored flashlight hanging from her utility belt.

After making sure it worked, she nodded firmly.

"Let's do this, daddy!"