Chapter 264: The Approaching Storm

The next day, Raiden was in the kitchen making a mountain of vegetable pancakes.

Not because he wanted to. Because apparently, in this house, breakfast was a group activity whether he liked it or not, and the three freeloaders currently crowding around his legs had very strong opinions about what constituted an acceptable morning meal.

"Woolie Woo!!" More greens!! The Emperor demands more greens in my pancake.

"You’ve had sixty pancakes already!!" Raiden argued back with a frustrated voice.

"Woolie Woo!!" Sixty is not enough. The Emperor is growing!!

"You’re not growing. You’re just getting round and fat!!"

"Woolie Woo!!" How dare you, human!! You take that back!

"Hiss..." Rose flicked her tongue from her spot on the counter, where she was coiled around a bottle of maple syrup like she was guarding a treasure.

He is getting a little round, Rai Rai~

"Woolie Woo!!" Traitor!!

"Sha Sha!!" Neva bounced on the table, her eyes fixed on the pan with laser focus.

Neva wants hers with extra mushrooms!! And bell peppers!! And that spicy sauce you made last time!! Make it extra super super spicy!!!

"You said the spicy sauce was too hot last time."

"Sha Sha!!" Neva changed her mind!! Neva waved her limbs around in a frantic motion, trying to show her determination and changing mind.

"You always change your mind."

"Sha!!" Neva puffed up indignantly, all of her eyes narrowing. Neva is a complex being with evolving tastes!! You wouldn’t understand!! Humph!! Stupid Rai Rai~!!

Raiden snorted and flipped another pancake, the sizzle filling the kitchen. Woolie was still arguing with Rose about whether he was fat; Rose was insisting he was, and Neva was now demanding that Raiden carve her pancake into the shape of a star because "round pancakes are for boring people."

The city was full of chaos and loud noises, but it felt like home to him.

And yet, despite all of it, Raiden couldn’t shake the feeling that had been sitting in his chest for the past few days.

The winds blowing nowadays were too calm.

He’d noticed it a few days ago, but he’d brushed it off as nothing. Now it was getting harder to ignore. The trees around the farm barely moved. The grass barely swayed. Even the clouds in the sky seemed to hang motionless, like the whole world was holding its breath.

Raiden didn’t like it. He didn’t like it even a single beat.

He’d spent enough time in life-and-death situations to know that calm didn’t mean safe. Calm meant something was coming. Calm meant the storm hadn’t hit yet.

This calmness meant a storm was coming, and he didn’t like it at all.

He went out of the house and picked up today’s newspaper before settling down on the sofa with a cup of coffee.

Scanning through the news, he found nothing out of the ordinary.

"Am I missing something from my home, or did I forget something important??" Raiden tried to think to himself while the three Terra Beasts caused a ruckus in the kitchen.

"Sylvia has already gone to school yesterday. Everything on the border looked normal. I already mended my relationship with Morgana. Aria also messaged me that she is doing fine and well. Sara in Woolie Textiles is finally able to turn a profit for the first time. Everything is going great, really great, even a little too great. I...don’t like it." The uneasy feeling in his chest grew even deeper when he thought about it.

From as far as I can remember, since he came into this world, his life has been nothing but a constant cycle of chaos and misery. But now everything is going well, and this has unravelled his nerves a lot.

"Oh well, whatever. Things in your life are actually going great for once, Raiden. So why are you complaining about it??" Raiden talked to himself in a miserable tone before he finished his last sip of the coffee when suddenly his phone rang.

Unknown number.

Looking at this, Raiden frowned as a deep, uneasy feeling started to settle into his chest.

"Hello?"

"Raiden!!! Save us!!!"

The voice on the other end was Iris, Sylvia’s friend from school. Raiden had met her a few times before, and tomboyist girl in Sylvia’s class and one of her best friend. Right now, she was talking so fast her words were tumbling over each other.

"Raiden, you have to help, you have to help her, please, they took her, they took Sylvia!! She’s been kidnapped by four people, please, you have to—"

"WHATTT?!!!"

Raiden’s blood turned to ice as he heard her voice over the phone.

The Coffee mug slipped from his hand and clattered against the ground as it spilt coffee everywhere, but Raiden’s mind wasn’t on it at all.

"What??" He asked again, his voice coming out sharper and louder than he intended. "What happened?!! Tell me everything. Immediately."

Iris started babbling, her words tumbling over each other so fast he could barely understand her. Something about ice cream. Something about black SUVs. Something about a mantis and a collar and—

Raiden took a deep breath.

"Iris. Listen to me. Breathe. You’re doing great. Just take a deep breath and tell me what happened next, slowly."

Iris sniffled, took a shaky breath, and kept going.

"Okay. Okay. So, Sylvia and I were walking to the ice cream parlour, the one near the school, the one with the weird flavours, you know the one, and we were just talking about homework, and then these black SUVs just showed up, four of them, and they parked them around us, blocking the whole street, and people got out, and they had Terra Beasts, and they just attacked; they didn’t even say anything, they just attacked—"

Iris’s voice cracked, and she started crying.

Raiden’s grip tightened around the phone until his knuckles turned white as his phone started to crack and make creaking noises.

"Iris. Listen to me. Breathe. You’re doing great. Just tell me what happened next."

Iris sniffled, took a shaky breath, and kept going.

"Miss Yuna, our teacher, she’d left a Terra Beast with Sylvia. A green mantis. It jumped out of Sylvia’s collar and started fighting all four of the Terra Beasts by itself as soon as they attacked us. It was so brave, fighting against all the enemies by himself, but it wasn’t enough, there were too many of them!! A-and they restricted it, tied it up with something, and then two of the people grabbed Sylvia and put her in one of the SUVs and drove away, and the other two stayed behind to hold the mantis back, but then very soon they ran too!! and Sylvia’s gone, Raiden, Sylvia’s gone."