"It's Sean," sitting on the pulverized remains of one of the two stone gargoyles, Sean answers a call.
"I just stopped by Kristoff and get this, he has a METAL ARM," the caller was Sebastian, letting one of his friends know of the discovery he just made minutes before.
"Sick."
"Right??"
"Hey!" Sean calls on to Marko who was eyeing his gargoyle who flew up in the air and hasn't come down since Sean destroyed the other. "Kristoff has a metal arm!"
"That's awesome."
"I know, right?"
"You guys free tonight?" Sebastian diverts the conversation.
"Yeah, I'm good."
"How 'bout Marko"
"Wait, lemme ask. Yo, Marko!"
"What," Marko was still staring up at the gargoyle in the sky who refuses to come down.
"You free tonight?"
"It's Friday, I got family coming over."
"Marko's negative."
"Bummer."
"Why, what's happenin'?"
"I talked with Harley and we're gonna take the nerd out for some drinks, get him drunk, and put magnets on his arm."
"How 'bout tomorrow?" Sean asks Marko again.
"I got nothing. Probably good."
"Tomorrow's good," Sean tells Sebastian.
"Alright, I'll tell Harley."
"Aight."
The call ends.
"Want me to pitch?" Sean asks Marko.
"Fine. This thing is starting to piss me off."
Sean gets up while Marko places Shelly on the ground. The former starts running towards the latter at full speed. Sean jumps at Shelly, Marko catapults him towards the flying monster at immense speed. Sean grabs the gargoyle's head mid-air, palming its stone face and hurls it towards the waiting Marko. Homerun. The gargoyle is smashed into pieces, smithereens fly off into the distance.
Rina arrives at her apartment in the city after a two-mission work day. It was only around 6:30 in the evening. She had left headquarters an hour and a half prior. Much earlier than usual but since there was barely any work and she was just lounging around the headquarters, she just opted to head home.
Despite being in an incredibly unusual, stressful, and more often than not, dangerous line of work, Circle's agents still have fairly normal lives outside of work. Marko, for one, is a family man. He has a wife and kids whom he lives with and comes home to everyday and maintains a tight-knit relationship with his entire family. A monster-bashing juggernaut at work and a normal husband and father at home. The others including Rina is no exception to this normality.
Like usual, she comes home to her large, beautiful apartment. Prior to Sebastian leaving, the two had been living together for a year at his place. Now, she is back at her own apartment.
She grabs her keys, opens the door, and steps inside her home. It was smaller and less luxurious than Sebastian's, but it was still much better than the average. Starving, she changes into something much more comfortable and starts preparing something for dinner. She takes out a bottle of wine and grabs a glass, taking eventual sips while cooking.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
She wasn't expecting anyone and very rarely gets any visitors. She decides to pause her dinner preparation to answer the door.
Rina was surprised upon seeing who was at her door.
"Seb?" Her face and voice both told confusion. "What are—Come in," she invites the unexpected visitor inside.
The man who was still in uniform slowly walks in, as if every step he took and was about to take is calculated. He takes only a few steps and stops before reaching the living room.
"I was um looking for you back at HQ, they said you already left so I just went here."
"Yeah, there wasn't really much to do. I've pretty much been free the entire day."
"I'm uh sorry for barging in," there was a slight hint of hesitation and anxiousness in his voice. He seemed nervous.
"I'm honestly surprised you didn't just shhoom in the living room," Rina jokes before taking a seat on the long couch, gesturing the standing Sebastian to take a seat which he then does.
"What's up?"
"About the Redwood thing…"
"What about it?"
"I, uh, I don't know, just wanted to check if everything's fine, YOU'RE fine, I guess"
"Seb, it's been like, three days," she says, smiling. "I'm fine."
"I never got to thank you, though. So, thanks," she added.
"No, it's, it's no problem."
"Ben told me you blackmailed him into giving me a paid day-off," she says, holding back a smirk.
"What? Fucking Ben," he whispers. "I just, asked him really nice is all. That's an exaggeration, I'm beating his ass tomorrow."
"He also told me you took my missions while I was gone."
"What, it's charity. I'm a good person and everything," the excuses keep coming.
Rina giggles at the responses he was giving. "Sure you are."
"I'm making dinner, wanna hang for a while? You know, eat something that's not in a greasy box."
Sebastian hasn't even answered yet when his phone starts ringing.
"Argh what now," he complains internally before taking out the ringing phone on his pocket. It's Benedict calling.
"Ah, it's just Ben."
"Might be important."
Sebastian looks at Rina, extremely hesitant on answering the call.
"It's fine, take it," she gets up and starts making her way to the kitchen. "I have to check on the pasta."
Sebastian takes the call.
"WHAT," he sounded annoyed.
"Jeez, you're grumpy," Benedict immediately notices his frustration. "I need you, this is ASAP."
Sebastian looks at Rina who was still watching him, silently asking permission and waiting for her to make the decision for him.
She mouths the word "go" to him, ending it with a smile.
SHHOOM
Rina sighs and proceeds with making her dinner.
SHHOOM
The geared-up Sebastian warps inside Benedict's office.
"Alright, you asshole. This better be worth it."
"Okay seriously, what pissed you off?" Benedict was utterly confused at Sebastian's current behavior. He was used to the man being mean and rude as part of their usual banter but this time, he seemed genuinely frustrated.
"You did, you fucking jackass. Now just give me the details."
"Alright, take a chill pill. Yeesh."
"We haven't confirmed yet but from its signature, this is an A, S-rank monster at most," Benedict explains. "We detected it just five minutes ago near some fishing village in Norway, around 300 population. It's already wreaking havoc in the village, we're afraid there has already been some casualties. More every second pa—"
"So give me the coordinates and I'll get there now. What are you yapping so much for."
SHHOOM
Using geographic coordinates, Sebastian warps to the tiny but scenic fishing village surrounded by mountain peaks and a large, crystal-clear body of water somewhere in an archipelago of northern Norway. Although extremely dark as it was already nighttime, there was no doubt that this was the place. Sebastian, unlucky with his jump this time, warped right on top of the cold waters. He recognizes this right away and immediately warps to the nearest piece of land in his sight.
SHHOOM
Close call. A second later and he would have had an untimely splash. Sebastian lets out a sigh of relief.
The small village resides on two different, interconnected islands. Screams and loud sounds of panic were coming from the other island across the one he warped to safety on. Villagers were fleeing away in packs one after the other. Even the villagers in the island he was on were starting to panic. He had no time to console them. His job was to eliminate the threat. There would be no need for panic if there was no longer any reason to.
The other island isn't that far from where he was and it was tiny. If the monster is fast, it would only be a matter of minutes until it wipes out the island and hops onto the next.
SHHOOM
He warps into island number one, people screaming and crying bumping into and running past him. He didn't care whether anyone would see him teleporting anymore, no one would probably notice anyway with the state that they were in.
SHHOOM
He teleports on top of a two-storey cabin to get a better vantage point of the area. There was no time to ask and run around looking for the invader.
"Second unit's not arriving for a while. Take care," he hears Benedict's voice in his earpiece.
"I don't need a second fucking unit," he replies. "You can tell 'em to turn back around."
"Where are you, you piece of shit," he mutters to himself, still struggling to find the monster terrorizing the small village.
Sebastian started wondering whether the monster had a stealth ability. Benedict mentioned earlier that they just detected the monster when it was already near the village. This was highly unusual as if it had come from some place else, away from the village, they would have already detected it a hundred meters away from the village. Even more so because it was estimated to be an A or S-rank monster. A hostile monster with this large of a signature wouldn't have gone under their radar unless it had an ability that lets it.
That or the village was secretly harboring the monster the entire time and it decided to rebel is his other thought. But this was even more unusual so he decided to push this theory to the side.
He hears the sound of screams getting louder about three houses away from where he was. A black, humanoid monster comes out from one of the houses, holding a villager by his neck and dragging him across the ground. Bingo.