(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 106

Chapter 106: Hunky and smart

The rest of the day passed with a blur. Kellen and the Captain didn’t even go to the medical bay for their guiding session, and instead did it in a small guiding room on the conference level with Taylor beside them. She’d taken a small, portable machine with her, since she was also going to be busy with everything that was going on.

They still hadn’t found out the identity of who had come out of the gates. By now, Maeve was already on her way to the front lines, along with Lieutenant Miro. He was going as a plant consultant, and to see if his powers could affect any of the poisonous ones growing around the gate. If he could, there was a chance he could slow the poison spreading down, but changing what growth level the plants were at.

Captain Sergei had evacuated the area around the gate back. Thankfully, Sakura’s Guild had created a poison measuring machine, and with its help they were able to get back to safe levels. But it was clear the poison was everywhere. It was alarming, and worrying to everyone. But, the Captain’s had come to some kind of agreement of sharing the load.

The D.E.C. was going to take the full frontal blame. At this point, it was only a matter of when the public found out about everything. The Captains had decided that with the PR that the D.E.C. had, they made the most sense.

The Nemesis Guild was going to provide the hazard suits, made from materials from their own gate, with help from the scientists they hired, as well as the Captain’s, and Sakura’s Guild as well.

Sakura was going to provide help with the poison. She was still nervous about contacting their joint acquaintance, but this time she was going to use Kellen’s name so they couldn’t say no as easily. But even without their help, they did have a team that focused on poisons, and they had done this before they had arrived. She was the best hope for potentially finding an antidote.

The Captain was providing people. Manpower. Their Guild had the specialization of closing gates, therefore, they were the best to go into the gate to close it. Everyone who would be selected for the teams going inside would be veterans, people who had already closed gates. People who knew what they were getting into.

That team hadn’t been selected yet, especially since the first scout team hadn’t ’left’ the gate, and the gate needed to be observed again. No one was going into the gate for at least a week. Probably a month if they could get away with it. With the gate still fluctuating on the extreme end of the scale, the experts had all agreed that they could probably hold off on worrying about a gate explosion.

So, there was a tentative plan. Captain Sergei was going to stay on the front lines for the time being, while Hill would eventually join him there once they had selected the team. That team would then go into several gates for training purposes before eventually going into the gate once Sakura had come up with an antidote of sorts.

They would then, hopefully, take in a recording device so that they could observe what the gate looked like inside, and then come back out. Safely. Alive. With minimal injuries.

But it was a worry, because if the gate wasn’t incredibly dangerous from the get go, why didn’t the scout team turn around? Was there something preventing them from doing so? It was a concern, and there hadn’t been many gates who had locked up behind them, so they were going to have to prepare for the worst case scenario.

That the gate would let you enter, but wouldn’t let you leave until you either died, or found the gate core.

Either way, it meant that everyone was busy, but Kellen felt like he didn’t quite belong in the high pace room. For Brent, he fit right in. He had a depth of knowledge about Guilds and gates that some people were finding suspicious, Kellen included, but he was a good aid. He knew what others needed before they asked, and got it done.

Kellen, however, was more hands on. He could help with the training of the team, and with the knowledge they would probably need, but that was it. He wasn’t meant for the chaos of this room. It was making his head spin. All the logistics side of things wasn’t his primary worry, and the Captain could see that.

He’d come over, kiss Kellen’s forehead and wrap him in a hug, before forcing him out of the room and off to eat and work out. The Captain would rather Kellen be in peek form in case something happened, then for his head to spin while being in the room. Kellen didn’t take it as an insult, and did what he was ordered to do.

~

Over the next two days, while everyone else was running around, stressing about the gate and logistics and everything else, Kellen ate, slept, and worked out.

Of course, he wasn’t unaware of what was going on, but he knew he also wasn’t helpful up there. They already had Kellen’s Father making sure the room was eating and watered and taking breaks, they didn’t need Kellen to hover.

So, he did what the Captain suggested, only going up to the conference level when they needed to do their guiding sessions, hoping that they’d need him for something, and if they didn’t, off he’d go to the gym or the cafeteria and just ate or worked out. He’d lapped himself for first place on the obstacle course, ran an impromptu work out class for the Espers in the A Class gym, and surprisingly, over the two days, got thick.

It was slightly concerning how tight his pants were now, and how hard it was to button up his shirts. He hadn’t expected that he’d need to request a larger Guide uniform so quickly, but since no one had really needed him, and the Captain only needed minimal guiding right now, where else was it going to go?

He felt good though. Healthy. And he looked better than everyone else in the conference room.

But now, it was Thursday afternoon, Kellen had just left the conference room after guiding the Captain, and there was a surprise waiting for him in the A Class gym.