The 'weird and strange' was spoken with such an emphasis that Maximus, who hadn't completely fallen asleep, immediately woke up.
Judging by Seraphina's face, it was very likely she was quoting his earlier words. He looked at Seraphina, Adrian and Isabelle, who he was sharing a tent with and immediately put up his guard. All three were very much awake right now and looking at him. With a hint of laughter, Maximus replied,
"Hehe, what are you talking about?"
Seraphina had an expression which looked like she was having difficulties holding in her laughter, eventually a chuckle escaped her mouth as it devolved into a full blown laughter. Isabelle on the side similarly let out a small chuckle as she answered the confused Maximus,
"Your acting skills are terrible, you know? You should work on that. And don't worry we know you are a supernatural being. Don't panic, me and Sera are ones too. Adrian might not be one but I trust him with my life and he is strong enough even without it."
Everything came so suddenly that Maximus felt overwhelmed by the load of information. He took a deep breath, not letting down his guard as he asked,
"How? How did you find out?"
This time it was Seraphina who answered, her face was flushed after laughing so heavily. She took a deep breath to calm down her mood and said,
"You should keep more control on your mind, you know. I would recommend you a couple books which might help you with it. Maybe controlling your expressions would help too."
Isabelle chipped in from the side,
"You are too clueless aren't you?"
"Are you the one to talk? Blasting the walls of a slum and escaping while giving out your identity?"
This time it was Isabelle's face which turned into that of someone who had been caught. Adrian who was watching the proceedings from the side was surprised too as he looked at Maximus in a new light. Seraphina attention turned to the couple as she questioned with a playful taunt,
"Oh my. What happened to our promise of doing everything together? Was I being a third wheel? You should've informed you know, I wouldn't have minded staying at home. I would've also provided you with information."
Isabelle completely ignored her and looked at Maximus, "How did you know? What else did you see?"
Maximus felt good after seeing their reaction. It wasn't pleasant being on the back foot, knowing those two people that day were indeed this couple and had even done something secretly which he knew about put him in a good mood. He simply smiled while refusing to elaborate, he didn't see anything else after all.
Adrian laughed and calmed down the worked up Isabelle, his eyes still on Maximus, he said,
"The surprising part was that you found us, not that you identified us, if at all you compared some images. Both of us here aren't good with disguising ourselves. It's Seraphina who takes care of that. Coincidentally, an important matter cropped up and we had to go immediately, there was no time to invite her or even follow anything she advised."
"It was a trap.", Seraphina chipped in from the side, attracting their attention as she continued, "From what you said and based on what I gathered that day by hacking on to various networks, it was most certainly a trap to catch you guys. I didn't understand at first what all the preparation was for but if it can catch you two guys I am sure it would be worth it.
"They had also partnered up with some new shop which had only just recently opened, it sells a lot of items which normally wouldn't be easily available though. So I think the shop either has a large backer or is a trap laid out by the same organization to catch supernatural beings who might be aiming for secrecy. Don't you buy from that shop, you both should only focus on fighting, regardless of what news or information you get your hands on, inform me first so I could determine what is going on."
Isabelle's forehead wrinkled with confusion as she asked, "Then how were we able to leave? It doesn't make sense for the trap they worked so hard on to fail."
"I think you both were only able to leave because some trouble occurred at one of the sides. The organization wasn't able to fully come out that night as the police were investigating some stuff. So all they had was that gang to do the stuff for them. One of the members of that gang bailed out for some reason at an important moment, and the rest of the members were likely occupied by you guys so no one could check what went wrong. You were simply lucky."
Her tone had a serious edge to it, most likely signifying the couple's importance to her. Seraphina then turned to Maximus and asked,
"Do you want to join us?"
But the latter's mind had already wandered off, 'Does that mean the shop which he ordered from is shady? Wait, if what Seraphina said is indeed true and that shop is a bait by that organization, it makes sense for them to be able to track me so easily. Those equipments might have a tracker in them, I failed to see that coming.'
Was that also why his sister got a probe attempt by the organization to monitor her place? Since his suit and other stuff were hidden not too far away from his building. (Author's note - This doesn't come under Maximus's inner monologue, he didn't even know about it in the first place. It is just me as a narrator of the story informing the readers. Again, it might or might not be true.)
'And about the latter part, does that mean the person I kidnapped was an important member for the operation or the trap that night? Oh waitttt, is that why that teleport superhuman and these couples both escaped in my direction? Since it was his direction which had a hole in their defense. It was probably also because of this that the man had a separate phone given by the gang. As there was no such extra phone on any other members he had previously killed of different gangs. Everything makes sense now, the slum naturally doesn't have only one opening but they still escaped in my direction likely because of this.'
"—Ello?"
He finally snapped out of his thoughts to the sound of Seraphina who was looking at him with an exhausted gaze. Isabelle burst out laughing while the Adrian had a helpless smile on his face as he asked,
"Assuming you join us, you won't zone out during the battle I hope?"
Maximus felt he had seen the invitation coming but also equally felt bewildered by it. He looked at the three of them and asked,
"Why would you guys take the risk of trusting me? Plus what do you gain from doing this? Lastly, would exposing our superpowers really be okay?"
"First of all, in the world of superpowers, 1+1 is never 2, it's more than that. We would always like more supernatural beings on our team. If we factor in your strength, our lives could potentially be in less threat. So it's more about cherishing our lives than trusting you. If you turned out to be really trustworthy we could gain another powerful ally. Lastly, telling your ability to us is for better cooperation, don't you think? We could go first if you are still wary about it. How about it? Wanna join?"
Before he could say anything, Adrian chipped in with a sentence which made him raise his eyebrows,
"We could also provide you with a way to increase your physical strength. What about now?"