9 8: Kelsie

"Remind me why we have to go through all this trouble again?" Marin complains. They'd been on lookout duty in Europe for a week now. "I could be back home honing in my throwing skills."

"Because we were told too. I know you're still a little new to this but you can't exactly abandon your post." Kelsie reaches over and grabs the espresso she ordered. "Just be glad the university doesn't care if we're on campus as long as we get all our work done."

"Yeah yeah, I know."

The Square in Edinburgh was automatically the best choice for them to be when they found out where they were headed to. A place that people constantly flowed in and out of allowed them to go unnoticed to outsiders. In the past few days they were come to be known as regulars and gained a reputation with the staff as being polite virtual students that were getting out of the country.

But the big reason they chose The Square is because of the view it offered. It's right across the street from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. They had a perfect view of an emplo entrance. The same employee entrance someone had been using to smuggle captured meta children into the Gallery.

"You have to remember that this person hasn't been seen in a a few days. So that leaves us three options." Kelsie puts her elbow on the table and starts counting. "One: whoever it is has the exact same power as Father and doesn't have to use the entrance. Two: they've been down there the entire time with everything they need. Three: whoever's keeping those kids there knows that we're watching them. The first one doesn't seem likely because if they were able to teleport they would have a much more secure base. As for the second choice, they would need to come out for supplies. It's only a matter of time before they are forced to show up."

Marin just sighs. "Well, back to the endless waiting for him to show up." Reaching across the table, Marin grabs a piece of fruit off Kelsie's plate.

After a couple more hours, the man they were looking for still hasn't showed up and Kelsie has fallen asleep.

"Hey, Kels, wake up. We need to head back to the hotel now." Marin shakes her shoulder.

Her head shot up, the long hair of the wig on her head falling into her eyes. "What? Who?"

A laugh escapes Marin's mouth. "Even when half asleep you're still ready to fight. There's no threat." He pushes the hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear. "We just need to head out for the night."

"Okay. Just give me a second." She closes her iMac and places it into the shoulder bag she brought along.

"Alright!" She stands up. "Let's go."

They grab the rest of their belongings and walk out of The Square. A little ways down the sidewalk they notice someone sneaking through the shadows.

Keslie raises her finger to her lips to let Marin know to remain silent. She pulls him into an alleyway and presses a knife of pure light into his hands. He tucks it up his sleeve so the glow doesn't give them away. Slowly they move out of the alley and go in separate directions.

Luckily, whoever it is hasn't noticed them yet. They just seem more concerned about getting wherever they're headed. Kelsie gestures for Marin to go behind them as she moves towards their right side. The person they're trailing leads them right to the employee entrance they were watching all day.

As soon as the door opens they spring on him. Marin drives the knife into his leg and Kelsie wraps him up with so much light that only his head is showing.

Upon seeing his face, Kelsie gasps in shock. "You!" She snarls.

"Do I know you miss?" He asks in a heavy French accent.

"Hold up, who is this guy?" Marin looks confused at the turn of events.

"This man, if you can even call him that is Michel Laurent," Kelsie spats. "I was sent to capture him last year but he disappeared without a trace. No one has been able to find him."

"Well if you hadn-" Michel gets cut off by a piece of cloth being shoved in his mouth. Looking over, Kelsie noticed that Marin cut off the hood of his jacket to use as a gag.

"Sorry. I don't want to listen to him all night. Let's just check this place out." He motions for her to grab Michel's feet and together they move him just inside the doorway. One look at the man that caused her father to doubt her and Kelsie loses all restraint. She punches him in the face, causing him to fall unconscious.

After double-checking that there's no way for him to escape once he comes to, they start moving down the hallway. The further down the hall they go, the dimmer the lights get. In order to seem like they belonged there, they opted to use their phones as a flashlight instead of Kelsie using the little light they had to see better.

"Wait, check this out." Marin calls her over to where he was standing in front of a large door.

She knocks on it and hears the sound of people moving behind it. A second later, the knock is repeated from the other side of the door.

Kelsie looks at Marin in shock at the returned knock. Reaching out, he knocks another pattern and it gets repeated right back to him.

"We found them." Kelsie whispers. Reaching into her bag, she pulls out a lock picking kit and sets to work on the lock. A minute later a small click can be heard. She grabs the handle and pulls the door open. Behind the door is at least 15 children, ranging from the age of five to ten. Glancing around the room, she notices that there are lots of beds (but nowhere near enough for all the kids), three different restrooms, and a small area with food for them.

"Who's there?" One of them calls out.

"Don't worry, we're friends." Marin assures them. "The bad man is gone."

With a low chance of being found by anyone, Kelsie lights up the room. The show of her power amazes all of the kids in there. Once the shock wears off, questions come pouring out of them.

"Who are you?"

"Where's Mr. Michel?"

"What's going on?"

"Do we get to go home?"

"I'm sorry sweetie but no. Your parents have gone away so you get to come with us." Kelsie leans down and grabs the closest one to her.

"YAY! So we really do get to go with you?" He looks up at her with big eyes.

"That's right!"

"We get to go with the nice lady everyone!"

Cheers fill the room along with some sparks from a couple of fire metas.

"Now, I'm going to call someone to help us get to your new home. But there are a few rules you're going to have to follow for a little while."

Groans rose from all of the kids old enough to understand what a rule is.

"Why does there have to be rules?"

"Because we want to make sure every one of you is okay. If something happens to any one of you, we're all going to feel bad about it," Marin tells them. "You don't want to hurt your friends, do you?"

A chorus of "no's" came from all of them.

Kelsie turns towards Marin. "Can you watch them for just a sec and explain what's going to happen?"

"No problem. Kids are my strong suit." He winks at her.

Turning her head away from him, Kelsie walks out the door and back outside. She pulls out her phone and calls Richard.

'Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up.' Richard was never one to take phone calls and she knew it.

"What's going on now?" He sounds very annoyed at being called.

"We found them?"

"Found who?"

"The kids and Michel Laurent."

"The man I sent you to hunt down last year?"

"Yes Father. That man."

"Good. So what do you need me for?"

"We need you to help transport them home. We can't fly them all back without people getting suspicious."

"Fine. Where are you?"

"The Scottish National Portrait Gallery."

"I'll be there in a second." He hangs up and a minute later walks around the building to where she's standing.

"So, where are they?" He asks.

"In here. Just follow me." Kelsie motions and heads back inside.

"Hey kids! I'm back and I brought a friend."

"The nice lady's back!"

All the kids crowd around her and gawk at Richard once he walks in.

"Okay, here's how we are going to do this. I want all of you to grab hands and then one of you can grab my hand. Make sure you don't use your powers or something could go wrong, okay?"

"Okay!" They chime in unison.

"Alright! Now, find a buddy and grab their hand tightly," Marin tells them. "I'm going to be on the other end of the line from Miss Kelsie and then we're going to form a BIIIGGG circle."

All of the children scramble to find someone's hand. Most of them grabbed the child that had stayed by their side the entire time.

Once everyone had a buddy, Kelsie grabbed on to her father's right hand while Marin grabbed his left. WIth one quick thought, they disappeared from Edinburgh and reappeared in the Underground's training room.

All the kids looked around amazed. One little girl starting concentrating really hard and she disappeared from where she stood. Then, she appeared on the other side of the room with a small "pop".

"At least this wasn't a total waste," Richard grumbles. Another teleporting meta will come in very handy.

"Father, we still have to go get Michel from Edinburgh. Marin and I also need to get back to our hotel to get all of our luggage."

"One more trip sir," Marin assures him. "Just one more trip there and we'll be back soon enough."

"Fine. But I don't want to hear from either of you until you step into my office in a couple days. You got it?" He asks them in a menacing tone.

"Yes sir."

Marin grabs Kelsie's hand and she grabs Richard's. A split second later and they're standing right in front of where Michel was still tied up.

Kelsie and Marin start walking out the door but she pauses at the last second. Looking over her shoulder she says one last thing to Richard. "Goodbye Father. We'll see you whenever we decide to come back home." She grabs Marin's hand and leave him behind.

They walk back out into the cool Edinburgh night and begin the walk to their hotel.

"Why did you say that?" Marin asks her. She had never been the type to talk to her father like that so it came as a huge shock to him.

She shrugs her shoulders. "Because he said he didn't want to see us for awhile. So, I figured we might as well hang out around Europe for a little bit and then head back home."

A laugh slips out of his mouth. "You know, you never cease to amaze me. No one else in the Underground would dare to say that to him."

"Well I am the daughter of the Demon Lord. It's not like he can do anything to me without causing an uproar among everyone."

"True. Very true."

They finished up the rest of the walk to their hotel laughing about different things they'd done together in the time since Marin showed up.

...

The rest of their time in Europe was only a little eventful. They hit France and Spain for a couple days each. Kelsie's extensive knowledge of languages made it easy to navigate and communicate with people they came in contact with on their little tour of Europe.

"Do we really have to go home now?" Marin asks. "We could just stay here forever and create a new gang that doesn't work with the Underground. It wouldn't be that hard."

"I'd love too but you know my father. He would hunt us down and kill us just as an example. Anyone who defies him doesn't live very long. Just look at my sister's parents."

Marins freezes where he stood. "Sister? You don't have a sister."

"Actually I do. I've only seen her once, and we were seventeen at the time, but she's definitely my sister."

"No way. I want to hear this entire story now."

"You might want to be seated for this."

Together they walk over to a bench, sit down, and Kelsie begins telling him their story.

"We were just a few days old when Father found out about us. Unfortunately, the people who had originally kidnapped us burned down the warehouse they were operating out of killing everyone but me and my twin. Father and Caitlyn, who was his wife, had come to try and take all the kids out of there. They made it out with the two of us but were ambushed by the same people who tried to kill us in the first place. One of them got a hold on the carrier holding my sister and threw her through the trees. Dad tried to escape with Caitlyn but the van they brought crashed in a tree. Caitlyn died there but Father managed to get out and grab me. Out of instinct he teleported back home. Later that day he went back to try and find her but only found the empty carrier with a few drops of blood in it. He thought she was carried off by wolves and never thought twice about it. Then, when we were seventeen Father and I took a team to kill Takeshi Alacritas because he was going to take our activities to the government. It turned out they had found her and raised her to use her powers."

"She's a meta like you?"

"Yep. Only she manipulates shadows. We are literally Yin and Yang. Light and dark." A thought crosses Kelsie's mind and she snickers at it. "If it had been me who had been taken in by the Alacritas' then we would truly have been good and evil."

"Evil? You? You're not evil, you just follow the orders you are given."

"I've murdered people. I've murdered HUNDREDS of people. Hell, I killed Takeshi and Dal Alacritas without a second thought. All these years later none of those deaths bother me. I know what I've done is wrong but I still feel as if nothing's wrong or ever has been wrong."

Marin reaches out and cradles her face with his hands. "You may think you're evil but it's only because of how you were raised. The way you acted with those kids last week shows me who you really are. You can play the big bad wolf all you want. At the end of the day, I know that the loving person those kids saw is the person you really want to be."

"Thanks for that. I guess I really needed it." Those words made her start crying. "Let's get back now. We have an early flight in the morning."

They stand up and walk back to the hotel, hand in hand.