The Custodes

Chapter 25 - Development

Neo
Three months had passed. The fact left Neo stunned whenever he thought about it - time had flown by a whole lot faster than he'd cared to realise, although it was likely due to a lack of action. Zuro and Nexus were missing; not one single sighting in the entire three months since the night at Kelsie's apartment. In the meantime the group had achieved practically nothing other than training, working, and overall enjoying each other's company. They had returned to normality, to a certain extent, with the only uses of their powers taking place during Hector's daily lessons. It turned out the man had practically an entire training area down a secret set of stairs in his home, which they all used frequently to develop their hand-to-hand combat and practice with any new skills they learned. Hector had even allowed people like Axel and Rose into his home, though he still refused to so much as speak to the former about his peculiar red powers. It was a fairly repetitive lifestyle, but they kept things interesting with different types of plans and gatherings outside of Hector's. Despite the lack of any sort of antagonist figure for them to take on, they all still trained hard each day with the knowledge that Zuro would return, likely with Nexus by his side. And that they had to be prepared for it.

At that point in time Neo was just about to leave his apartment, throwing on a lightweight jacket over his casual white t-shirt before scooping up his wallet and keys and pocketing them. He checked his phone as he opened the door and walked out, smiling slightly as his lock screen displayed the name 'Synth' with the message 'Don't forget to remind Noah and Rose about date night!!'' beneath it. He quickly responded with a simple 'I won't :)' before tapping on Noah's name and typing a quick message to let him know he was heading outside. 'I know. I can see you. Be outside in five.' came the reply as Neo shook his head slightly, before flashing a quick salute and smile to one of Noah's unnoticeable camera devices planted right outside his door. It must've been weird literally being able to see more than a hundred different areas around the entire city with a single thought, but Neo didn't think too hard about exactly what went on in Noah's head when he checked the cameras. He started to head downstairs, his eyes unintentionally drawn to Kayla's door as he passed it and glanced down slightly. That was another thing; Kayla had been missing for the three months too. Except that wasn't exactly true - she wasn't missing, they knew precisely where she was, but she hadn't left her apartment once in all that time. Everyone was concerned, but with the very few occasions where Kayla replied to one of their texts they had learned a few things. The first was that she was dealing with 'something' and didn't want any sort of help from any of them. That was inescapably clear - none of them were to go near her. The second was that whatever it was, it was going to take a while to resolve but that she was doing all she could to come up with a solution, despite remaining entirely secretive about what it was. The third was that she was okay. She had assured them many times, yet whether she was actually being honest or was simply keeping her pain to herself none of them could tell. Neo had knocked on her door, once. He'd learned his lesson about how bad an idea that was with Kayla, but the excuse he'd come up with was that desperate times called for desperate measures. He wanted to know what was going on, and wanted to help her any way he could. That wasn't how things went down however. He could recall her face when she opened the door, her features sullen and drained, like the last sliver of hope she had in her body was slipping further and further out of reach. "Kayla, listen I-" he hadn't even gotten three words out before she interrupted, her voice quiet yet holding an intensely firm grimness that Neo had never heard in anyone before. "Neo. If you ever come here again, I'll kill you. Kill you, you understand?" She sounded so genuine and spiteful that Neo couldn't bring himself to utter another word, not even to try and convince her he could help. It hardly mattered to her though, the door was shut the next instant and Neo was left alone with a horrible sinking feeling deep in his gut. He'd actually been scared, despite everything he'd faced up until that point. Neo tried to put the memory to the back of his head as he walked past Kayla's door and down the flight of stairs, entering the busy street outside. More and more people had been returning to the city due to Zuro's absence, but the number was still far smaller than Neo was used to before all the chaos.