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"It's the latter, I'm afraid," said Jackson. "I have scouts on the ground who have laid eyes on his encampments."

"Could be illusions," said Sermung.

"Illusions who also attacked my scouts?"

"Mm. Less likely, though still not impossible."

Jackson paused for a curt sigh. "We have no reason to believe that Jercash has such capabilities, at the moment."

"You have no reason not to, either."

"Now you're just trying to annoy me."

"I was trying to do that earlier, too. Could you not tell?"

Jackson squinted and rubbed his forehead. "Oh, how I've missed you," he said with a tone that very much suggested otherwise.

"Where are the other marshals?" said Sermung, sounding entirely unbothered. "What're they up to?"

Jackson's struggling posture did not change. "Please do not make me answer that in front of Hector here..."

"Oh, come on, it'll be fine. He's trustworthy. Isn't that right, Hector?"

Despite how useful that type of information might be, Hector felt compelled to take Jackson's side. "You don't have to answer that, Mr. Sentinel."

"Excuse me, but I'm the High Commander here, not you."

"Don't listen to him, Mr. Sentinel. Don't let him win. He's a bully. And the Vanguard never lets bullies win, right?"

At that, Jackson actually looked up and snickered. "He makes a good point, Commander."

"Pah! Betrayal, that's what this is."

"I believe that is exactly the opposite of what is happening, right now." Jackson stepped closer to Hector and handed the folder he was previously reading over to him. "Here."

Surprised, Hector took and opened it. He eyes widened even further when he noticed that it was his own name at the top, along with several pages of text and attached pictures. Was that his yearbook photo?

"Is there any information in there that should be corrected?" asked Jackson.

Before he could respond, however, Sermung snatched it out of his hands and began reading.

"Ooh," the Titan cooed. "What do we have here? Finally, your meticulous recordkeeping is coming in handy."

"For my own sanity, I'm going to pretend you never said that."

Hector wondered why he was the one who had to utter these next words. "I feel like we have more pressing matters that we should be focusing on..."

"Yeah, yeah," Sermung, waving his hand as he read. "Talk amongst yourselves. I'm still listening."

Hector and Jackson exchanged sympathetic looks with one another.

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To make matters even stranger, there didn't appear to be many people around, either. Hector only spotted a single receptionist, a petite secretary, and an apparent errand boy who looked even younger than himself.

Sermung even commented on it. "Keeping everyone busy, aren't you?"

"No sense in having them all cooped up in here," said Jackson's fiery avatar. "I can't stand this place when it's crowded."

Hector had to hold back a scoff. So not only was this building ugly, it also wasn't even functional, either. It was too small for their needs, so everyone just stayed away.

Aw, shit, he noticed Sermung side-eyeing him, probably reading his aura again. What a smug face, too.

Gotta be more careful, Hector told himself.

It didn't take long to reach Jackson's real body. It was one short elevator trip down into a basement, then through a pair of double doors into a large, warehouse-looking chamber filled to the rafters with metal shelves and containers. The human-shaped flame that had been guiding them vanished into thin air, and only a man reading a file in the distance remained.

"Welcome," he said, closing the folder in his hands and looking up. He wasn't very tall, but his dark features were about as chiseled as Hector had ever seen. If he turned out to have a history as a movie star out of Bellvine, then Hector would not have been surprised.

"Can we speed this along?" said Sermung. "I'm not in the mood for another lecture."

"When are you ever?" said Jackson.

Sermung had since removed his crystalline armor and now looked like the most normal dude Hector had ever laid eyes on. Brown hair, brown eyes, plain gray shirt with scuff marks on it, dark slacks with a few tears in them. No shoes, either. Just bare feet.

Meanwhile, Jackson over there was looking like a proper military officer, fully suited up, if only missing the coat.

Which one of these guys was the leader again?

Sermung tossed another glance his way.

That time hadn't been an accident on Hector's part, though.

"So we know that Jercash is somewhere in the northwest," said Jackson, walking closer. "He clearly has multiple camps that all keep moving, and we can only assume that he is traveling between all of them."

"Northwest, you say? I couldn't sense him in that direction when I checked recently, so either your intel is wrong, or he is concealing himself quite well."

Page 4203 -- CCCXXXII.

Daro paused again, scratching his chin. "Is that true? That might explain why he sometimes does not appear in the footage when I know that the camera was looking right at him..."

Zeff tilted his head at the man. "How am I more informed about the nature of psychics than you are, Black Artisan?"

Linus and Kristof exchanged amused looks. It wasn't often that they got to see Daro getting scolded for not knowing something.

Daro scoffed. "This is hardly my area of expertise."

"A poor excuse," said Zeff.

"In fairness," said Kristof, "psychics are notoriously reclusive. They go quite far out of their way to conceal such information. Which begs the question: how did you learn of it, Water Dragon?"

Zeff shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

"It matters if there's still more that you can tell us about them," said Daro.

Zeff looked at them a moment. "Perhaps there is."


Chapter Three Hundred Thirty-Two: 'O, beating heart of the protectorate...'
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The Vanguardian headquarters in Andeyal was honestly a bit disappointing, Hector thought. Given how much incredible architecture he'd seen elsewhere in the city, he'd been expecting this place to be similarly impressive, but apparently, that had been a mistake. The HQ was little more than a blank slate of an office building, indistinguishable from those around it. Moreover, it wasn't even tall enough to reach the lowest of the elevated highways that ran all over the city.

It was like a little tree stump, sitting in the shadow of the forest around it.

'That's because Vanguard HQs have a long history of getting attacked and destroyed,' Garovel was telling him privately as they were walking through the featureless main lobby. 'At some point, they got tired of putting so much effort into rebuilding them. Plus, blending in has its perks.'

Hector remained unconvinced. 'If it gets attacked so much, then that's all the more reason to build a super cool fortress, instead.'

'What, you think they never tried that?'

'Hmph. They should've kept trying until they succeeded.'

'Of course you'd think that way.'

'The right way? Yeah, I would.'

Before coming here with Sermung and Jackson, Hector had stopped off to talk to Roman and the others, bringing them up to speed as best he could. He'd wanted to have them come along, too, but Garovel advised him against it, telling him not to push his luck too much with these two friendly juggernauts.

Even Voreese had implied something similar. 'When you get invited to dinner, it's impolite to bring a bunch of strange guests.'