"Hey Mr, what's your name?" I asked, looking out the window as we drove further and further away from the only home I'd known for 6 long years.
"John Watson. It's my turn to ask you questions now. Why did you not struggle when the mutant was about to eat you?" He asked me, his face was calm but his tone was stern.
"I…I wanted to…I thought that if eating me would do someone some good I'd at least be able to be useful for someone…I'd be able to do something good in my like" I confessed. My head turned downward, my eyes pointed at my lap, as if to avoid the criticism that was sure to follow.
"That's a dangerous mindset, especially for a detective." He said, I already knew that though.
"I-"
"Wait. I'm not done yet, I said it was dangerous, not bad." He spoke, calm and collected, his tired blue eyes never once leaving the road, yet he still somehow knew what I was thinking and doing, "it's good to help people, that's what detectives should want to do. Help people get justice, help people find solace in the fact that at least the one who caused the tragedies will face punishment. But, letting it consume you, letting your own need to help others, to be useful cloud your judgment will only lead to your and your loved one's downfall. Blindly following orders just to be useful or helping others without thinking over what they are asking, who they are, and what you yourself can handle will only end in failure."
"I know….you're not the first person to scold and lecture me on this."
"I'm sure I'm not, but, just looking at your face, I can tell it hasn't set in yet."
He was right. Of course I'd listened to what Lexie said but…just…I wouldn't know what to do with myself…I've never thought of hobbies or anything I like. I've only ever thought about what to do to make others happy.
"I'm sure whoever told you this before wanted you to be happy, to live for yourself. It's gonna be hard, and you won't have your answer immediately so just sit on it for a while. Once you've found a reason to live for yourself, you can tell that person proudly that you have one."
I sat, looking out the window in silence for the rest of the ride. I looked at the birds, the trees, the sky…that's when I realized…had I ever taken any time to really look at these things? Truly understand who I am?
"We're here, kid, take your bag and follow me." John said, unlocking the door and got out.
I grabbed my bag and followed him to a very rundown looking building.
"Is this some kind of murder house? Is he actually gonna murder me and sell my organs?!" I thought, looking at the old, decrepit house. It was practically falling apart with multiple holes in the roof and moss growing on the water worn walls.
"What are you doing standing there? Come on?"
"You-you're really not tryna kill me in your murder den and sell my organs right?"
"You should be grateful that the President told me I can't hit you." He said as if an old hobo looking guy you met a few days ago who is obviously very strong and scary leading you into a dark decrepit falling apart isn't so obviously something you'd see in a horror movie.
"John? Your back already?" I heard another voice, this time coming not from my head or the old guy but from the house.
Out walked a tall man with long brown hair tied in a side brain that flowed down his shoulder to his waist. He had doe-like gray eyes and a mole right under his left eye. He was dressed in some kind of doctors coat.
"Oh, Hayakawa, I'm just tryna get our newest recruit to go into the building."
The man, who I now knew as Hayakawa sighed exasperated, "knowing you, you probably threatened the poor boy."
"I didn't threaten him. I just said that if I could, I would hit him for being so stupid!"
"That's threatening! Huh…what will I ever do with you?" He shook his head a bit before stepping outside and towards me, "I'm so sorry for my coworkers disgusting behavior. I'm Akio Hayakawa, I'm the free healthcare you probably heard about from the old fart over there." He said, holding out a hand, I guessed he probably wanted me to shake it so I took his hand.
"Um, my name is Edgar Allen Poe… you can call me Allen"
"Nice to meet you Allen," he smiled kindly at me, "you should come in before it dark".
I was led into the house,which looked a lot better from the inside than the outside.
"It's not much, most of our members are out on cases right now so we'll all introduce each other when they get back," he told me, leading me through the house, he led me upstairs and soon we were in some kind of residential area "this is the kitchen, we take turns cooking each week. Over here is the living room. We don't have many open rooms so you'll have to share with someone" he spoke as he showed me around the rooms. This went on for a while, we went through the house that seemed ten times bigger than it did outside.
"Um, Mr. Hayakawa?"
"Oh just call me Akio, and yes?"
"The house it's um, a lot bigger and nicer than I though it was…"
"Ah! Right, knowing John he probably didn't tell you. The whole house is covered in a veil!"
I was very confused, what did he mean by veils?
Luckily it seemed he caught into my confusion as he began to explain what he meant.
"A veil is something one of our members can do. It covers an area in a barrier of sorts and masks the real appearance of it depending on what the caster wants. I'm sure when Shen Xue comes back she'll be better at explaining it."
"Mr. Hayakawa? I'm back!"
"Oh would you look at that! Shen Xue, could you come over here? Our new recruit is here!"
A very beautiful woman stepped out from the door. She had long silky black hair that fell just below her knees, rose tinted lips and a pale complexion reminiscent of freshly fallen snow.
"Hello there, I'm Shen Xue, I'm a cultivator or I guess you could call what my power is a distant relative of esper abilities."
"Oh um, I'm Edgar Allen Poe and um I guess I'm an Esper, only found out just a few days ago…"
"Nice to meet you Edgar Allen Poe, welcome to the team."
I spent the rest of my time hearing interesting stories about the other members from Shen Xue and Akio.
"-Yeah! I remember that time! John was still relatively new to his powers! He started freaking out after he just suddenly knew how to speak perfect fluent German!" Shen Xue laughed as she told me stories about hobo- I mean John.
"Yes I remember that, and then Dae Eui started calling different ghosts for him to try on!"
"Yo boss! I'm back! You won't believe what happened! This group of kids totally messed with my-" In walked a black haired woman. She was wearing a black loosly fitting crop top and loose fitting sweatpants. She had a pixie cut with some gray highlights, "Who's the kid?"
"This is our newest recruit, why don't you introduce yourselves?" Akio said, gesturing to me.
"Hi, I'm Lee Dae Eui, I'm what people call a conjurer, I can summon the souls of departed people, it helps sometimes but mostly I rather just use my fists. I'm mostly sent to clean up cases or deal with rowdy parties" She said, a big grin present on her face. I could tell she was an energetic woman.
"Hello, I'm Edgar Allen Poe. Mr. John says I probably have some variation of a mind reading ability."
One after another people came in and introduced themselves as they came back from what I presumed were cases.
"My name is Gabriel Debois, I handel the legal aspect, before I awakened my ability I was an attorney for my cities top law firm. My ability is detecting lies, so it works quite well for interrogations."
"I'm Alice Schmidt, I work as the translator for the agency as you might've already figured it out but none of us actually speak each others language. Instead of all of us trying to speak broken English, German, Chinese, Japanese, etc. I use my ability which can amplify a persons power to amplify John's power of copying the deads characteristics. I amplify it and share it to all the agency so we can talk using the same language."
The introductions continued with another person starting but something just didn't feel right.
Then.
I heard it.
I'll make this whole place go boom
I rushed to tell the others what I'd heard, "Everyone! Somethings going to happen! The whole building its-its gonna someones gonna blow it up!"
They looked at me like I was crazy, a look i'm all too familiar with. But I kept pushing, "If nothing happens you can all blame me for wasting your time but we need to leave. Now!"
I hurried and everyone shuffled out of the building which soon exploded.
Serves them right.
I heard the voice again. It was the voice of a young man, about 30-40, it was coming from ahead to the right. I ran towards the direction I heard the voice from.
"Stop!" I yelled once I caught a glimpse of the figure in a black hoodie. I grabbed them and tackled them down, holding their neck in a choke hokd to make sure they couldn't resist or run away.
"W-w-w-w-w-wait!" I heard someone call from the distance, back near the blown up house. I looked over, still minding to make sure the guy was firmly in a choke hold and looked back at the house.
It wasn't blown up, not on fire, not anything. But how?
"Geez…we only wanted to tease you a little as a test, we didn't thnk youd go and chase him, much less tackle and interrogate him." It was Akio who was jogging towards me, the rest of the agency in tow.
"Geez kid. You really went at it there." I looked down, shocked by the very familiar voice I heard coming from the person, the voice that now sounded nothing like before. There on the ground, very obviously out of the chokehold was the mean hobo, John Watson.
"Congrats kid, you're now officially a member of The Paranormal investigation Agency, or PIA for short."