The helicopter ride was too loud to talk in, but that did little to let Rey cool down as soon as they sat done on the tarmac where the aircraft was docked. Rey was back at it, talking to Janus in loric, trying to make it so the others in the helicopter couldn't understand him.
Janus, for the most part, was doing pretty good hyping up S.H.I.E.L.D. and explaining why the loric had joined. Telling Rey whathad done for the other Loric and even telling Rey about the second Ship, but every word was met with looks of distrust and some mild Loric insults directed to Uncle Simon, Damien, and even the other Loric for trusting humans.
The more time he spent with him, the more Damien's guess about him being racist to humans was proven to be correct. Both Simon and Damien knew basic Loric, so they heard the appalling number of times Rey said humans with a tone of disgust while he talked to Janus.
Janus wasn't joining in on the human bashing, and he even tried to defend them the first few times, but the more it happened, Janus gave up trying to convince Rey that Simon and Damien were on their side. Instead, focusing on convincing him to come to New York, seeing the other loric, and then making his decision to join S.H.E.I.L.D. or not. That brought them into an awkward silence, Rey watching silently as the Tactical team unloaded and a black SUV pulled up to take them back to their site.
Damien had Sent his Uncle a text covertly informing him to get the camera from the agents, so after the agents disembarked Simon walked over to Amanda, got the camera for the pictures of the battle site, told her he would give her access to funds to get some people to go fix the battle sight, and He told her he would have Mike give her access to the report when it was done after arriving back in New York.
Simon knew the Agents would need to know something, even if it was a blatant lie, Can't have random unexplained attacks in a residential neighborhood with no explanation plus it would be a sign of trust to let Amanda have access information that she believed was above her pay grade since Damien had declared in as Level 8, especially since she seemed competent and this area was supposed to be under her watch.
As they talked, the others exited the helicopter, Damien standing next to Cody behind Janus and Rey, Seeing the agents leave, Rey was eying up Simon's sidearm as Simon watched the Tactical team drive off his body positioned away from the loric Damien saw Rey's eyes flicker around, trying to analyze the odds of success of taking the Simon and Janus down, getting Cody, and escaping. Thankfully, he must not have liked his chances, so he took a step back.
Rey and Janus start talking in loric again, Janus gave Simon and Damien an awkward expressions at every insult Janus knew Simon and Damien both spoke loric and the expression he gave was like when you're at a elderly home for a relative and then the nurse or doctor comes in and your relative says something mildly racist and you give the person an apology smile/Grimace to showcase that you are sorry and not in on it.
Simon gave Damien a summary of the events that had taken place while he was downstairs. He had a mild dislike of Simon as soon as he answered the door, but when he saw Janus, he invited them into the apartment. The excitement of seeing another loric opening the door, but as soon as Simon gave him the pitch for S.H.I.E.L.D. about uniting forces to fight against the mogs, one day. He didn't like it even with Janus, Rey probably would have turned Simon down, believing he knew what was best. He already had hard plans to go to a deserted island somewhere no one would think to look for him.
But that was before Cody had run into the apartment; they were in the middle of being turned down by Rey before he believed an attack had happened. Rey had proven he was going to be a problem, but he was an ok cepan prioritising getting to safety. He quickly chose to escape the building with Janus and Simon, grabbing his emergency go bag and Cody's loric chest.
When the helicopter arrived on the roof of the apartment complex and the tactical team jumped out, Rey had insisted that they leave, believing the Mogs were there. Uncle Simon insisted that they wouldn't leave Damien, and Rey tried to convince them, saying how important the Garde are. That was when Janus said something that made things so much worse.
Janus had even told him that Damien was a Garde, and he had reacted horribly, filled with rage by the idea that a worthless human being was a Garde. He went on a wild rant in Loric, but after he took a breath, Cody chimed in to confirm that Damien had used his legacy in a bet. Which made Rey stop his little rant cold.
Right after Cody had told his Cepan that he had been knocked out by Damien's Legacy, Damien had arrived that was why he had given Damien such a hate-filled glare. Damien understood that part of it was because he had used his powers on Cody, but he knew most of the Anger was because Damien had powers at all.
Damien could understand it. Imagining things from his point of view growing up in a much smaller world, one where half the population has powers and having them instantly crowned as the protectors and superstars of your race but you are in the half without powers, sure your disappointed but you rise above it You have to work for everything but you pull yourself up from that disappointment but hey at least you had the consolation prize of being born in the most advanced civilization of all the planets that can sustain life.
Now imagine the planet ending, your civilization that you had immense pride for gone, Everything you work hard to achieve gone, Family/Friends gone, only a handful of your species left, and some snot nosed human kid comes around claiming to be a part of the half of your society that you dreamed of being as a kid, Said kid from a race and society you have looked down your entire life. Damien could understand the anger and the frustration.
"You know our language, Human," Rey asks Simon. Finally noticing that Simon and Damien were standing right there. Rey looks at Damien with that mean old man glare.
"Yeah, I've been learning in my Leisure this last year since I found out about the loric and mogadorians Also my name is Simon Swift CEO of Swift Co., and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D." Simon says in a no-nonsense tone that has a slight edge to it. He had already introduced himself but saying his full name and titles to say what Rey could call him by. An unspoken threat not to call him Human like that hidden in the words.
"From what I know you weren't one of the greeters how did you learn about the Loric or Mogadororians?" Rey asks in a rude tone.
"A year ago, I got my first legacy while I slept, a bunch of images and facts in my head, and the entity from Lorien told me bits and pieces of the future. It told me that I was chosen to help the loric in the transition to this new world. Several of the loric would of originally died and as loric the 9 were supposed to be the new elders Lorien didn't want it's chosen to die, so it chose another champion to protect them on earth, I told my uncle And of course he didn't believe me but when I found Janus and your ship, He was forced to believe what I told him was the truth." Damien tells Rey.
(The future sight legacy by loric standards has two main forms, from the extremely rare to the point of being dismissed as a myth long-term future sight that is capable seeing into the vast future(And what damien is trying to sell he is capable of) Which is uncontrollable which is why it is a myth if you can't use it reliably then you can't claim it as a legacy or the less rare but still uncommon short term future sight and the max it was proven on lorien to be able to see is a few hours ahead and even then excruciatingly rare most short sight users only manage a few seconds that can be used for combat.)
He let out a distrustful grunt at the claim and sent a glare Damien's way. (Damien had chosen not to tell Rey that Uncle Simon had been given loric knowledge and strength by Lorien, like He told the others, for being his official cepan, because He wanted Rey to underestimate his Uncle because Damien didn't trust him.)
"Children Should be Seen, not heard," Rey said after Damien was done speaking giving him a sneer. Maybe it was because of the thing with khione but He hated being talked down by this weak mean old man.
"Old people should just sit and sleep in their beds," Damien says. Damien reaches his hand out to his knee. He looks like he going to blow up at Damien, maybe try and take a swat at me, try some old school discipline.
As soon as Damien's hand touches rey's knee his anger seeps off his face as he goes to unconsious. There are a lot of reactions around Damien as he does asleep. Uncle Simon seems mildly Amused. Janus is angry at Damien for using his legacy in a non-combat situation, though not that angry. Cody is looking at Damien with sparkles in his eyes.
Damien bet Cody cares about the old man deep down, but just from knowing him for 20 minutes, He can imagine how much five wanted to take him down a peg. Simon and Janus Pick up Rey and put him in the ship, grumbling the entire time.
Damien shot Cody a smile and pushed his fist out to him for a fist bump. He looks at it like it's an alien artefact (Which I guess in a way is true to him). He flinches back when Damien grabs his hand, but Damien put up his hand up to say its ok. Damien then makes Cody's hand into a fist and taps it with his and then explodes his fist while making the explosion sound. Cody laughs at his antics slightly.
Damien knew that's super childish in his head but it's fun to play around with another kid his own age plus Cody was so sheltered that everything is new to him. They talk the whole way back to New York, Damien told him about New York And Ella and the second Ship. He is really looking forward to meeting the Chimera.
The mean old man wakes up a little when They are an hour into their flight but almost immediately, he starts to yell at five to not to interact with Damien he calls Him specific unrecognized Loric word that He has to ask Janus the definition of and Janus chuckles when Damien asks because it's an old loric word the best comparison in English is rapscallion. After he gets worked up again, Damien knocks him out again.
Damien seems to like five when he's not around rey. He is just a normal kid that likes ninjas, toys and video games. Damien was not going to let Rey let Cody get indoctrinated because of his massive issues. When they were in the air, Damien grabbed a sharpie and the dropped in Cody taking turns writing on his face. The usual stuff: a mustache, A monocle, Damien wrote Rapscallion on his forehead.
Janus is too busy flying to notice Uncle Simon is on a phone conference with Ike, and the old Man and honestly doesn't seem to care at all. It was a very fun ride home. Especially after Damien gave Five a DS. He looked at it like it was Holy Grail. Damien didn't know that he liked video games even at a young age That island must have been really rough for him.
Cody falls asleep after playing for half an hour with his hand clutching the DS like it was his lifeline. Damien put a blanket over him and started reading the files over his uncle's shoulder. This finally gave them time over to go over the events of the fight against khione. When Damien mentioned that Khione gave him a new suit, the mist tried to reinforce on Simon and Damien had to control it to let him know this was different then the ones he was wearing before it was annoying but enough to prove this had something to do with the gods.
Simon Briefly looked at the photos of the crash from what he described there was bits and pieces of a blue truck with liquid nitrogen cannisters that had somehow blown.
The pictures told the story that it had crashed into our vehicle, and the tanks blew, freezing parts of the street. That would be the official story, the story for the level 8's and 9 's and the report that Amanda would get access to was that there were Attackers with some type of ice weaponry. It wasn't a hard stretch to guess there is something like that in the mog arsenal and they needed the loric to believe that the threat was the mogs, not wanting them to know about the gods.
There were only half a Dozen demigods and legacies in S.H.E.I.L.D far the highest one a level 6, so there would be no reason to tell them so the real truth would stay between him and Simon.
In other Apparently, the board members who had made a play for their company before were still trying to build support behind the scenes. Specifically trying to Strong arm with their authority into S.H.E.I.L.D. Since they couldn't do anything at Swift Co. against the Swifts, since Simon and Damien have a controlling interest. They were making a play for S.H.E.I.L.D. but their plans were doomed to fail because Simon had already spent months distancing S.H.E.I.L.D. from Swift Co. Damien falls asleep while reading the boring legal documents.
------------------------------------------
Five Advanced chapters on my patreon
Patreon.com/AndrewAlsbrooks