For Sebastian, home was a 2,738 sq. feet penthouse apartment of a nine-storey building in the city, about an hour and a half ride from the Circle facility. Large, luxurious, and expensive. The whole apartment takes up the entire floor and with a private elevator that opens right into the apartment, something he rarely uses if ever.
He arrives home at this luxurious unit after a fairly busy day having completed five A-rank missions, four of which were alone. Despite all this, he wasn't tired at all. If anything, he felt a bit underworked.
SHOOM
He warps right in front of the elevator that he hasn't used in a year. Prior to that, months. He walks the short corridor on the way to the spacious living room where an old man in a suit was sitting comfortably on the off-white colored couch, waiting for him.
No reaction from the owner of the unit who had an uninvited visitor break in.
He heads straight for the neat, minimalist kitchen area right across where the old man was sitting. He opens the fridge, stares at its contents for a couple of seconds, and grabs a bottle of beer.
"Why am I not surprised that you have access here," he pops the cap and walks over to the living room, taking a seat across his visitor.
"You should be well aware by now that we have eyes everywhere."
Sebastian's visitor is the deputy director of Eden – Paul Kaminski II. This old man with long, full gray hair in a ponytail and wrinkly face couple with large burn marks on the left side of his face crawling all the way to his ear and neck was also the Circle's director, the forefather of the organization.
"Let me guess, you guys were als—"
"Monitoring you in Copenhagen? We never lost sight."
"You guys have zero regard for privacy, you know that?"
The old man just smiles. As blunt as that sounds, it was 100% factual.
"How was it?" the old man asks, trying to have a conversation about Sebastian's life during retirement.
"Boring."
The old man laughs at the response.
"As much as I am looking forward to my own, I'm afraid that retirement will not bode well for people like us."
"What are we doing here, exactly?" Sebastian was not enjoying the small talk.
"Well, I simply wanted to see how our best agent is doing," The man's answer sounded like lip service.
"Yeah, like you haven't been doing that for the past year."
"And to also get said agent up to speed on some matters that transpired during his absence."
"I didn't take you as one for gossip but sure, hit me."
"Do you remember Dr. Crowe?"
"German scientist, funny accent, head of the nerds, yeah."
"A month after your resignation, some disturbing news regarding the doctor's personal ventures that he masqueraded as Eden's came to light. Before we had confirmed said news, he had already packed his bags and left."
"What did he do?"
"That, is information above your paygrade."
Sebastian frowns in disappointment and slight frustration. Now all he was thinking is that he needs a raise. And he probably should have negotiated that as his term for coming back. His frown gets bigger.
The old man gets up from the expensive couch. "All you need to know is Dr. Crowe is a wanted and dangerous man."
"That's it? This could've been a text."
The old man laughs. "I did say I wanted to personally see you."
"And now you have. You got in on your own, you can show yourself out," says Sebastian as he heads towards his room, little to no hospitality for his elderly superior.
"It's good to have you back, Sebastian," the director's parting words to which Sebastian just replies by raising his right hand and shooing the man away with his back turned.
As he was changing, Sebastian thought about the situation regarding the wanted scientist. He couldn't help but be curious. He knew that his fellow agents were equally clueless, if it was above his paygrade then it would for sure be way above theirs. But Benedict probably knew about it. "I'll just get it out of him some other time," he thought, and went straight to bed.
11:05 PM. He has been laying in bed for two hours but is still wide awake. He has tried a hundred sleeping positions, not a single one helped. He gets up and turns on the TV on the wall right across his bed.
12:15 AM. Still no sign of drowsiness. He turns off the TV, it's just annoying him at this point. The same goes for his bed. He lazily paces towards the kitchen, maybe stuffing his belly was the solution. He opens the fridge, its light emanating on his visibly frustrated face. Three bottles of alcohol, two energy drinks, six cans of soda, a microwave pizza, and some condiments. None of these would work. He grabs a beer and heads outside to the balcony. He parks his behind on one of the balcony chairs, placing the sweating beer bottle on the floor. He feels his pocketless pajama pants looking for something, force of habit. Lets out a loud sigh. SHHOOM. Gone and back after eight seconds with a pack of cigarettes in his left hand, takes one out and throws the pack atop the small table in front of him. He lights it using the small lighter he was holding in his right hand and promptly tosses the lighter as well. He can't help but feel like he was missing the boat he had lived in for some reason.
He looks up at the starry sky. Peaceful, calming. But not calming enough to put him to the sleep that he so desperately wants at the moment. None of this was working. He gets up and decides to just go outside.
SHHOOM
He arrives at the Circle lobby wearing a long-sleeved shirt, pants, and socks and slippers. A dress code violation but the place was pretty much deserted, no one would notice and no one would care.
Although the agents, both Inner and Outer, didn't necessarily have a clock in and clock out time as their job pretty much required them to report whenever, most, especially the Inner agents were gone and at home during the night albeit still ready for any call. Outer agents, on the other hand, follow a shifting schedule. At 12 midnight, there were no longer any Inner agent in the facility with the exception of Marko who was in the lobby when Sebastian teleported in.
"Wow. What are you still doing here?" Sebastian asks his co-worker who was seemingly working overtime.
"I should be asking you that," Marko pointing out the irony in his usually tardy co-worker arriving at the workplace at midnight in casual clothes.
"Couldn't sleep. Gonna go for some workout in the training room," Sebastian explains himself. "You?"
"I just got back. Just taking a breather before I head home," Marko answers.
"I'd say 'stay safe' but it'd be more appropriate to say that to any dumbass that would try you," says Sebastian as he was leaving. "Night, Juggernaut."
Sebastian arrives inside the Circle's training area – a large, empty, white room, much larger than the mission control room or any other in the facility for that matter. The facility was a three-storey building. The training room which was situated at the far end of the facility took up three-storeys of space.
He looks at his phone. 12:23 AM. At this point, Sebastian didn't even want to sleep. He just wanted to kill time and fast forward to the next day.
3:16 AM. The slumbering Circle's head of operations gets a call. This wasn't new. It wasn't even a rare instance. Work calls happen all the time if you're the secret monster-killing agency's head of operations. What was odd about it is the caller. Benedict grabs the ringing phone in his nightstand, leans back on the headboard, and looks at the caller – Sebastian. He was perplexed.
He answers the call. "Well this is a first."
"I'm at the training room. Call Eva, tell her to come here," Sebastian answers. No explanation whatsoever on what was going on. He sounded very calm as opposed to the implied situation he was currently in.
"What happened?" worry and confusion in Benedict's voice. Sebastian was calling for the Circle's resident healer, he had a hunch that something bad happened but he didn't know what. After all, this was Sebastian and he was just in the training room. He was completely dumbfounded.
"No time, just get her here," still no explanation from Sebastian. "FAST!" The call ends.
Travelling from the city to HQ usually takes about an hour or an hour and a half ride by car. Luckily, this was at 3:00 in the morning where the roads are as empty as they get. Eva arrives at the facility about 20 minutes later with Benedict who picked him up and absolutely gassed it on the way.
Benedict had called ahead of time to check up on Sebastian who was in the training room. If Sebastian was injured like he had assumed, personnel would have come and applied at least first aid treatment while him and Eva were on the way. But apparently, first aid would have virtually no effect on Sebastian's injury.
While they were on the way, the report that Benedict received was that Sebastian sustained several third-degree burns on his arms and that it was a wonder how Sebastian still held on this long.
The two arrive at the facility, running at full speed right to where the injured Sebastian was. The training room door was open and they were welcomed with the sight of Sebastian surrounded by several Circle personnel, his back rested against the wall on the far end of the room. Half his shirt was charred, his right hand up to his forearm was severely burned, and almost his entire left arm charred, his left hand looks like it had been thrown into a pit of flames. The phone that he used to call Benedict covered in blood from him trying to use it with his scorched hand.
"Oh my god," Eva hadn't run that fast in her entire life.
"'Bout time you got here," says Sebastian, still smiling.
"You idiot, what did you do??!!" huge bright glow from her hands starts lighting up half the room, her powers working on full capacity.
Benedict approaches the two, also trying to get some answers. "We got this covered. You guys can go," he dismisses the personnel that came to Sebastian's immediate aid.
"Fuck are you doing here? You're not Eva," Sebastian still in a teasing mood with his friend despite the situation he is in.
"You tried the Void thing again, didn't you?"
"I can use it already, I just lost control for a second."
"Wait, y-you have?? Since when???"
"You think I've just been fucking around for the past year?"
"Wait, what void, what are you guys talking about???" Eva was completely out of the loop.
"The 'Void' is kind of like another dimension or realm, one that even Eden hasn't fully grasped yet. We don't even know what it actually is other than that," Benedict explains.
"And what does that have to do with this idiot here??"
"This idiot's power comes from the Void and this happened because he tried physically harnessing energy from it, which is something very dangerous and something that we have already warned and prohibited him from doing several times before," Benedict added.
"I HAVE done it. I told you, I just lost it for a few seconds."
"That 'few seconds', could have been your last," Benedict was clearly dissatisfied.
"If you're going to try this in the future, it needs to be in a controlled environment. Not at 3:00 in the morning when no one is around," Benedict's lecture keeps going.
"Okay THIS, is bad," says Eva referring to Sebastian's injuries. "This is going to take an hour and a half at the least."
"Can't you go faster?" asks the insensitive Sebastian.
"THAT IS me going faster. That's me going the fastest I can but these are not just regular burn injuries," from Sebastian's injuries comes out a faint, black mist-like element, seemingly being absorbed and dissolving with Eva's healing light. "Whatever this "void" energy thing is, it's not only extremely harmful but there's also some residuals left on your injuries by the looks of it."
"And you nearly lost your left hand!!" adds Eva. "Moron."
"Oh god, do I have to take this nagging for two hours"
"YEP", the two answer in unison.
"You deserve it."