Captain Sunshine

Chapter 6: Change is Scary but Necessary

"Since when were you on his side?"

"Since he gave Fang a chance." Shielda turned to his teammate proudly, "He may not be so bad as the rumors say."

"Yeah, that kid tends to be a lone wolf. Much worse than his other brother." Nut helpfully commented with a mouthful of carrot cake, "I'm actually surprised that he changed his mind just like that. I mean last time—"

The engineer stopped when he noticed the attention he had garnered, making him swallow the dessert and chuckle nervously, "Why are you guys looking at me like that?"

"Oh sorry, Nut. It's just that we barely have any idea about the guy and you dropping fun facts is usually the highlight of my day." Sai said jokingly while sipping his carrot juice, "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Come on, you act like you never met his brothers."

"You have?!" Fang turned to Sai who had also asked at the same time, "I have?"

"I kept talking to you about his brothers and this whole time you were just acting like you understood who I was talking about?" The mechanic looked at him incredulously which Sai hastily defended,

"I thought if I stopped acting like I knew them, you'd stop sharing your juicy stories about them!"

Nut rolled his eyes, "You do know them. Remember Api?"

"The kid who almost sliced his head off? I do." Shielda responded. Surprisingly, she sounded proud instead of vengeful for someone who almost had her brother decapitated.

"He's the Blaze I've been talking about. And Petir is Halilintar... and you should be connecting the dots by now." Nut deadpanned while Sai slapped his forehead in realization.

"I swear- this human language is too tricky." He mumbled, "Since when did they decide to go by code names?"

"Since they've achieved their second tier." Nut answered, "It was easier for them to at least be able to separate their work-related stuff from their personal stuff by using their names in a given circumstance."

"Hold up! So the nerd- Cahaya- he's-?!" Sai looked at Nut with wide eyes, and the latter sighed in exasperation.

"Wait, wait! What's going on?" Fang couldn't help but interrupt the conversation that was slowly throwing him out of the loop. Fortunately, Shielda was sensible enough to explain for him.

"Back then, when the main headquarters needed our assistance due to the lack of agents, we had... brief encounters with these humans."

"I mean they were the only humans in TAPOPS. Couldn't you have put two and two together?" Nut turned to Sai who held up his hands, defensively.

"They were super strong, I sometimes forgot they were the fragile humans that our teachers taught to us during our academy years." He then helpfully added, "And humans were pretty common in the main HQ back then too."

"Sai, they were the only humans there!"

"...anyway. Seven brothers go by the name of the elements they actually hold, while the other three were... Yaya, Ying and... Golo...?" Shielda turned to Nut who helpfully corrected, "Gopal."

"Gopal." She continued with a nod of her head, "And we used to know the brothers as Petir, Angin, Tanah, Api, Air, Daun and Cahaya."

Fang automatically translated the names from one of the many earth languages he had studied during his own years at the academy, "Clever."

"We actually never got to know all of them. Just... brief encounters." Sai butted in, probably trying to save face, "Like with Api and Angin on their Toughness test. We were assigned to stop them from getting the power sphere."