That's the story we are going with

Stepping through the slightly greenish, swirling distortion of space, Leo gladly left the world of the portal behind. 

Holding his breath as the slightly nauseating, disorienting feeling of slipping through reality humans didn't belong to took over his senses, Leo simply… emerged back on the other side. 

Back home. 

Leo's eyes shot all around, scanning the area for potential threats. 

'I only ever did a rough scan of this thing,' Leo thought, stealing a glance at the collapsing portal he just left. 'So I can't really tell if they can break open…'

Judging from the situation so far, portals like that appeared all over the world. And as soon as the first one of them cracked open, letting the fiendish hordes out to the world, everything would change. 

'Thinking back to the message from the ekhem, aliens, it's likely those things won't just stay dormant…'

Those portals were supposed to be an end result of the circuit's creator intervening to slow down the invasion of their rivals upon Earth. And since humanity was asked to 'hold on', there had to be some kind of threat looming. 

And where else could it come from if not from those portals?

'I doubt there will be a lot of challengers capable of clearing them if every portal will be on the same difficulty or higher…'

Leo had no problem disposing of whatever came at him. Even though the grotesque boss monster at the end was an unexpected upset, technically, it still fell within the range of the mana of the portal. 

With its low aura due to the nature of its mana, Leo could hardly notice it when all he had was a general idea of how much energy radiated out of the portal. 

"At least for now, things seem to be going okay…" Content with the inspection, Leo breathed a sigh of unadulterated relief. 

Those portals obviously had to break at some point. And unless they only appeared near civilization or human gatherings of a certain scale… The free ranges of the world would soon vanish from the maps, overran by fiends of all sorts. 

And that was just green portals that Leo took into account, not even daring to venture a guess of just how bad higher-rank portals could affect the world. 

"Leo!"

Before the young man could form another thought, two women screamed out at the same time. And while they both rushed ahead equally as fast, the smaller of the two proved to be quicker on her feet. 

"Millie, Carol…" 

With the skimpily-dressed girl slamming herself into Leo's chest, his properly dressed step-mom ended up grabbing both of them in a bear-like hug. 

"You've just returned, so why are you trying to go away all on your own again?!"

While Millie reached Leo quicker, it was Carol who voiced out her distress first. And while she desperately hugged him, her face was filled with a heart-breaking mix of concern and justified anger. 

There were many ways in which Leo could reply to this question. 

But no matter what he would say, Carol's main concerns would never be abated. 

After losing him for six years, she has likely long accepted his passing, the passing of a child entrusted to her. With the death of the patriarch of the Pesterny household, she was left all alone to deal with double the grief and soon quadruple the problems when the rift between Rob and Mark started to appear. 

With all of that in mind, Leo couldn't find it in himself to respond, if every possible reply would only come to aggravate Carol's grief and sadness. 

And so, he opted not to speak at all, before reaching for the ultimate weapon of men when dealing with women. 

"I'm sorry."

Leo fought off the desire to go on. There was no point mentioning how there were a lot of things going on, how the entire world was likely going to shit, how there was danger lurking at every possible turn… 

"I wouldn't if I didn't have to. But don't worry, I don't have any plans to engage with those portals more than absolutely necessary."

For now, it was Leo's duty to reassure his mother-in-law. Even though she wasn't related to him through blood… she was still a woman who took the place of Leo's late birth mother and did her utmost to fill in her shoes. 

If there was anything Leo regretted when it came to Carol, it was the grief and hardship his disappearance put her through. 

"What are you even talking about?" From the other side, Rob rushed to grab and lightly pull at Leo's arm. "After…"

Leo's intense stare quickly shut his brother down before he could reveal more than Leo intended to. 

"I'm not going to deny my contribution, but you were the one who ultimately dispatched that ugly son of a bitch," Leo countered, quickly rushing to turn what happened into a story of cooperation, skill… but first and foremost, simple luck. 

"I was the one who noticed that your skill might be that thing's weakness," Leo shook his head only to then gently nudge his childhood friend and stepmother away, only to reach out with both of his hands and land them on his brother's shoulders. "But it was your skill, not mine, that brought it down. And," Leo's smile flickered, growing slightly sinister for the most fleeting of moments, "aren't you the one who ended up with the clear reward?" 

Rob opened up his mouth for a second, only to then close it and lower his face as if giving up on whatever ruse he was trying to play out. 

Or, far more likely, he realized it wasn't him who Leo directed those words. 

"You were gone for so long but you can still corner me with just a few words…" Rob muttered, lightly kicking his right foot to and fro as if trying to mask his embarrassment. 

"And that's the story we are going with," Leo announced right as he turned his eyes to the now handicapped, surviving policeman and gave him a cheerful look. "I think we can all be glad that this thing," Leo raised his hand with the policeman's body cam in it, in a perfectly intact state, "got hit and stopped working. We wouldn't want anyone to bother the family of such a genius," Leo turned sideways while removing his hands from Rob's shoulders, only to give him a solid smack across the young man's back. 

"Would we?"