Unlocked: Rewritten

Chapter 34

A/N

Sorry I'm publishing this so late! It's literally 11:30 pm right now lol. Anyway, enjoy this chapter- the POVs are switched in order this time! Idk why, I just wanted to spice it up I guess XD

Keefe

"What do you mean another member?" Sophie wondered.

"Yeah, who is it?" Dex asked.

"Let me guess," Keefe said, "It's my grandma."

Everyone turned to Stina as she suddenly cracked up. Keefe didn't think he'd ever seen her laugh before, and especially not this much. Tears were running down her face, and she was gasping for air.

"What?" Stina said through hysterical cackles, "That was funny!"

"It wasn't that funny," Sophie said. Keefe elbowed her, to which she kicked his shin.

"Ow! That was uncalled for, Foster!"

"You kids..." Mr. Forkle mumbled.

Gethen ignored them. "Anyway, I don't know much, but I do know that the five Neverseen private operatives are finally going to come into battle."

"FIVE!?!?!" The whole Team Valiant screamed at once.

"Yes, five," Gethen said indifferently. Keefe couldn't tell if he was taunting them, or just bored.

Keefe crossed his arms, fighting the sudden urge to bash that stupid casual expression from Gethen's face. Sophie's own father could at least pretend to care.

"What are their abilities?" Wylie asked.

"Are you sure you don't know who they are?" Biana inquired.

Gethen nodded. "I've worked with them plenty, but I only know their codenames and abilities. There's Astro, who's a Charger, Trix, a Guster, and a Beguiler, Vera. Then there's Sparrow, a Voicifier, and... Obsidian, our Fluctuator." With the last member, Gethen whispered the name as if he were afraid to speak it too loud.

Keefe understood why. Fluctuators were rare, and they could be very powerful. Keefe had only heard rumors of the feats they could accomplish, but he was sure Gethen had seen them up close.

"What's a Fluctuator?" Sophie asked. Sometimes it surprised Keefe the things she had never heard of. It was easy to forget that Sophie still had a lot to learn about the Lost Cities. It felt like she had been there forever.

"They can manipulate the density of objects," Wylie informed her.

"Yeah, it's really cool," Dex jumped in, "they can turn a solid object into liquid and then a gas, and the other way around."

"I think you mean it's really creepy," Stina said. "They can evaporate people."

"Hypothetically, yes," Dex responded. "But there's no proof that that has ever happened, or that it's even possible."

"There is now," Me Forkle said quietly, pale as a ghost. "In Gethen's memories."

Gethen just nodded, a haunted look in his eyes. "Obsidian isn't someone to cross," he whispered.

"Well, it's kind of too late for that," Biana realized. "We're all on a different side of the war than him. We've already crossed him."

A morbid image entered Keefe's mind.

Sophie, evaporating into thin air.

Just the thought made Keefe want to go after Obsidian. Hunt him down before he did to Keefe's loved ones what he had surely done to countless other victims.