The Rise Of CuteGuy

A Few Months Later

Scar pov

It had been three months since the whole incident with Xavier. Three months since Hels and Wels had torn into him, since Xisuma had to step in, since Xavier had disappeared.

At first, Grian and I didn’t think much of it—Xavier was unpredictable. He disappeared when he wanted to, showed up when he felt like it, and didn’t answer to anyone. That was just him. But as the weeks stretched on with no word, no portal openings, and no cryptic messages, even Grian started getting restless.

Still, we didn’t have time to dwell on it.

We had been throwing everything into hunting down the Watchers, into figuring out where they were, what their patterns were, and how much influence they still had. And what we found was worse than either of us had expected.

They were everywhere.

Not just in the corners of old ruins or lurking in the shadows of forgotten places—no, they were embedded in everything. High society, low society, the cracks in between. If there was information to be gathered, they had a hand in it. If there was power to be taken, they already had their claws in it.

And the worst part?

They knew we were looking.

We had to work in near silence, keeping our research quiet and our movements even quieter. Every step forward felt like walking on thin ice, and every piece of information we uncovered only made the weight on our shoulders heavier.

Grian was more tense than I had ever seen him. He barely slept, barely ate, and anytime I caught him still, his fingers were twitching like he wanted to pluck his own feathers out again.

I wasn’t much better.

The deeper we dug, the more I realized just how little I actually knew about them. I had thought I understood what we were dealing with—thought that the Watchers were just a secretive, dangerous group that needed to be taken down.

But this?

This was something bigger. Something ancient.

Something that had always been watching.

Even so, we pressed on.

And then we got a huge lead—one that changed everything.

The Watchers might not just be some ancient organization or eldritch beings lurking in the shadows of the universe. No, according to what we found, they might actually be from space.

It was a wild idea. Too wild. Even with everything we’d uncovered, even knowing they were more powerful than we had originally thought, something about it didn’t feel real. Grian didn’t seem convinced either, and for once, neither of us had an answer.

So, we turned to the only people we knew who had actually been to space—Xisuma, Hels, and Wels.

Normally, we would’ve asked Xavier, but… well.

We didn’t know where he was.

He had vanished without a trace, and after three months of complete silence, I wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be found. Maybe he was off-world. Maybe he was avoiding us. Or maybe—maybe—he had found something out before we did. Something bad.

That thought settled uncomfortably in my chest, but I pushed it down.

For now, we had to focus on what we could do.

And that meant getting answers—real answers—from the three space travelers we still had access to.

The café was quieter than usual when Grian and I stepped inside. The scent of fresh coffee and baked goods lingered in the air, but the usual lively chatter was more subdued. It didn’t take us long to spot him.